The great apartment reshuffle of 2008, or, Has anyone lost their horse?

This is a special bulletin addressing all West Hartford residents. 

You may want to check on your horse. That is, check only if you already own a horse. Is it missing? Yes? Then, I may have an idea where you can find it. You may want to try the back stairwell of the triple-decker I call home. 

I'm told that a single man lives above me and that two women live above him, but I swear someone's hiding a horse up there, and they're waiting until I'm in bed to take him down the stairs (which just happen to line the wall of my bedroom closet) for a walk in the backyard. And, in a move I can only assume is meant to scare off any potential horse thieves, they're slamming the back door as hard as possible on their way outside, rattling windows and waking me from a calm slumber.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I think an animal like a horse shouldn't be cooped up in an apartment all day long. Am I alone here in these opinions? I just think such abuse isn't right.

But, being new to the neighborhood, I also don't want to rock the boat too hard by insisting that the horse be, at the very least, kept in the garage.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the horse is invisible. So, if you're missing a horse and it isn't invisible, I'm sorry if I got your hopes up. You'd better run off those missing signs at the Kinkos after all. I mean, this thing must be invisible, because every time I hear the hoofs, the clip-clop, I only see one of my upstairs neighbors leaving and walking across the driveway. Strangest thing . . . I hear a horse, yet I only see a person.

Hey, wait a minute. Maybe there isn't a horse, after all. Maybe one of the neighbors just walks really loud down the stairs!

That's a bit more logical, isn't it?

Of course, what I'm rattling on about is the fact that the Professor and I are dealing with living below a noisy neighbor. This is always the fear that comes with living in a two- or three-family home. And, thus far, I don't feel comfortable saying anything to the noisy one because first, I'm the new guy in the building, and second, they're just WALKING. I can't tell someone to walk differently, can I? How awkward would that conversation be?

"Uh, hi, excuse me. I'm Ben from downstairs."

"Oh, hello."

"Um, yeah, I was wondering, when you walk, do you imagine yourself more as a ballerina or as an army cadet?"

"What?"

When we first moved, the rest of the building was empty. Thus, no horse. Then, slowly but surely, the rest of the residents returned from business trips and summer vacations. And the noise began. The first time it happened, I thought we had a surly pirate living above us with two peg legs.

But, no. No pirate. Just a man and two women. All seemed to have their natural legs and feet, as well.

So, the Professor and I both recently decided, after a long night of the "stair brigade," that we'd had enough with the stomping. Instead of getting frustrated to the point of literal and figurative exhaustion, we chose to swap our bedroom with our office/spare room. This would move us away from the noise and get us out from under the stairwell. It was either that or install a slide in the back hall, which, on second thought, would probably have resulted in more noise when everyone torpedoed into the wall at the end of the slide (though the sight would've been one to cherish).

The swap was going to be gradual, taking place over a few days. We were going to shuffle out desks and bureaus first, file cabinets second, then the bed on the final day. 

Having just moved and unpacked less than three months ago, though, the sight of an unfinished room became flashback-inducing. Once we began, we knew we couldn't stop. Shelves were uncovered, trunks were hoisted, the bed frame was deconstructed. We were cooking with gas, as they say. Within two hours, we dismantled our home. And all that was needed was to put the puzzle back together again. 

The first bureau was moved, then the desk, then the computer. We slid the mattress into the new room and, once we got our cat Tuesday out of it, followed behind with the box spring. 

Then, we attempted to move the smaller of our two dressers.

Two of the five drawers had been removed in an effort to lighten the unit. Looking back, we should have just taken the extra minute to remove them all. I should have also probably had shoes on when we decided to move something so heavy.

"Maybe we should-" I started to say. 

That's when the corner came down on my foot.

The next five minutes consisted of me laying on the floor in the hall, laughing in pain, holding a six-pack ice cooler against my foot. Nasty blood blister. Really sore. I cursed the horse at that moment. I may have even said something about a glue factory as I stared at the ceiling.

But we were so close, we couldn't stop.

Hobbled, we got the bureau into the spare room. And the bed. And everything else.

We made the shift in one afternoon. And I'm now typing away in the former bedroom, my foot wrapped in ice. And, the space feels okay. In fact, I almost think the room works better as an office. Same with the new bedroom. And this gets me to thinking that maybe the horse was a blessing in disguise? Some sort of feng shui entity, pounding above our heads until the proper order was achieved. 

Either way, I'm considering getting a seismometer. I think scientists would be fascinated with the results. The human earthquake in the form of a tiny woman.

I hope this reshuffle does the trick. I need a decent string of sleep-filled nights. If not, I'm going to move into the garage. The invisible horse will keep me warm. I think, if I lose enough sleep, he may even become visible. Then I'm in a whole lot of trouble.