Personal Voice

Larry was excited the day his big gun safe arrived. He would put it in his basement and use it to protect many things. It had a high fireproof rating and could save many valuables, including irreplaceable family photos.

The day the truck arrived at his house, Larry was there to meet it. He had the driver back right to his door. When the driver opened the back of the truck, Larry was excited to see that the safe was even bigger than he thought.

The driver told him it was 1100 pounds. The driver lowered the safe with the drop-gate on the truck and used a pallet jack to work it through the door into the house. But after the driver left, Larry wondered how he would get the safe down the stairs. It was right at the top, but to move it would take some ingenuity.

Larry got the idea that if he could tip it off the pallet onto the stairs, it would slide down by itself. He got a crowbar under it but couldn’t get one side more than an inch off the pallet. Then he had an idea.

Larry went outside and pulled his pickup near the door. He tied a board between the pickup’s bumper and the top of the safe. He then slowly drove forward. He was excited to see the safe starting to tip. As it tumbled over and crashed down onto the stairs, the crunching of wood made Larry wonder if that might not have been the best decision.

The safe slid down the stairs okay, but the stairs were definitely going to need rebuilding. Larry was so excited to have the safe at the bottom that the needed stair repair couldn’t even dampen his spirit.

The safe was mostly upright, and with a board behind it prying against a couple of cinder blocks, he was able to tip it up straight. It almost went all the way over, but it came back and settled itself into a standing position. But Larry couldn’t think of a way to move it to its final position. He tried everything he could think of and finally called his friend, Bob, for help.

Bob was an old engineer, but more than that, he was creative. He was more creative in his thinking than anyone else Larry knew. It didn’t take Bob long to size up the situation, and seeing that they couldn’t move it other than to lift one side a little, he sat down to think. As he did, he looked up and saw Larry’s tool bench. Suddenly, his eyes lit up.

“Larry, do you have a bunch of sockets from a socket wrench set?” Bob asked.

Larry nodded. “Who doesn’t?”

Larry retrieved them, and then, while Larry pried up one side, Bob slid some sockets under. They then did the same to the other side. When they pushed the safe, it almost took off without them. But the sockets on the push side quickly rolled out from under while the front ones rolled far enough under to drop the safe on that side to the floor. They lifted it again and stuck some more sockets under the front. They pushed slower this time, putting more sockets under the front and gathering up the ones that rolled out the back.

They continued this process and soon had the safe in place. They then pried it up and worked the remaining sockets out from under it. Some of Larry’s sockets were no longer round, but he felt it was a small price to pay to have his safe nicely in place.

When Larry’s wife came home and saw the safe in place and the damaged stairs, she turned to Larry. “And just what happens if we ever need to move?” she asked.

Larry thought a minute and said, “I guess we’ll have to get another safe and a few more socket sets.”