How to move a couch in 34 easy steps
Step 1: Buy an unreasonably large couch. Make sure each of its dimensions are at least 7” longer than the width of your apartment door.
Step 2: Lug the couch up to the fourth floor of your building, cracking a few of your vertebrae in the process. If you don’t hurt yourself, you’re doing it wrong and should probably start over.
Step 3: Once you get to your floor, think of how fun it would be to push the couch down the stairs while riding on top of it. It would be REALLY fun, wouldn’t it? Try it out, then repeat step 2.
Step 4: Use super glue to repair all four legs of the couch, which broke when you crash landed into the wall at the bottom of the stairs.
Step 4b (optional): Visit the emergency room and have yourself checked for a concussion. Save valuable time by having them pop your dislocated shoulder back into its socket in the same visit.
Step 5: While the super glue on the couch legs is drying, drink seven or eight beers.
Step 6: For the first time ever, measure the width of your door and the width of your couch. Obviously, it will not fit. Curse loudly.
Step 7: Remove the feet from the couch and measure again. Obviously, it still won’t fit. Shout angrily at the couch, as if it has feelings.
Step 8: Take out a screwdriver and attempt to remove your apartment door from its hinges.
Step 9: After ten seconds, announce out loud to no one in particular how boring this task is, and then discard your screwdriver and get another beer.
Step 10: Drunkenly forget where you put the screwdriver, and instead try to undo the screws with your apartment key.
Step 11: Congratulations! All the screwheads are now completely stripped and impossible to remove! Use a saw to cut off the door hinges instead.
Step 12: Measure the door again. Realize the couch still won’t fit, even with the door removed from its hinges. Curse loudly.
Step 13: Take a break and watch reruns of The Golden Girls for two hours. After all that hard work, you’ve earned it!
Step 14: It’s now three in the morning, so it’s time to get back to work. Search the internet for tips on how to remove your door frame, because that’s a thing, right? Yeah, I’ll bet that’s totally a thing someone did once to make a couch fit.
Step 15: Since you don’t have a drywall knife, use your apartment key to pry off the door frame.
Step 16: Shout angrily as you break off the end of your apartment key.
Step 17: Super glue your apartment key back together. Drink six more beers.
Step 18: Knock on your elderly next door neighbor’s door and proudly show her how you super glued your key back together. She doesn’t speak much English and seems very angry that a drunken honkey woke her up at 4am, but don’t let that dampen your enthusiasm.
Step 19: Test out your poorly-glued apartment key in the door you removed earlier. Curse loudly as the end of the key breaks off in the lock.
Step 20: After 20 minutes of trying to get the end of the key out, accept that the excess super glue has hardened inside the door lock forever, and realize that it doesn’t really matter anyway since you sawed the door off its hinges.
Step 21: Take a break and watch reruns of Saved by the Bell for two hours. After all that hard work, you’ve earned it!
Step 22: It’s now six in the morning, so you should probably drink another case of beer to keep your energy up.
Step 23: Duct tape all your credit cards together and use them to force the rest of the door frame out of the wall. Don’t worry about little details like how terrible it looks, how impossible it will be to put back in or how little skill you have in remodeling such an important part of your residence.
Step 24: Wave casually to your landlord as she passes, leaning against the door in a manner that hides the horrible, lease-violating damage you’ve caused.
Step 25: Measure the gaping hole where your door used to be, and then measure the couch.
Step 26: Curse loudly as you realize the goddamn thing is still three inches short of fitting into the apartment.
Step 27: Take a break and vomit ferociously onto your building’s fire escape.
Step 28: Take a break from vomiting and watch reruns of Hollywood Squares. After all that hard work, you’ve earned it!
Step 29: When a stoned guy from down the hall starts asking inane questions, invite him inside. Spend the next 12 hours watching TV and getting high. Completely forget that you have no door or door frame in your apartment, and are completely exposed to anyone who would like to steal your belongings or rape you.
Step 30: Wake up at 3pm and immediately pass out again after seeing the gaping hole where your front door used to be.
Step 31: Wake up at 4pm to find that someone much smarter and less alcoholic than you has stolen your couch from the hallway. Problem solved! The couch is now “moved”. WHERE it has moved is still a mystery, but it’s close enough.
Step 32: Visit Home Depot’s parking lot and hire illegal immigrants to fix your door frame.
Step 33: Realize that the price illegal immigrants charge is almost as expensive as paying a licensed contractor to do the same job. In retaliation, refuse to buy your illegal workers lunch. Watch as they revolt, damaging your apartment even worse and stealing your other furniture.
Step 34: Stealthily move out of your apartment in the middle of the night before your landlord notices the damage. Change your legal name to “Thad Swivensbee” to avoid being taken to court.
Congratulations! Your new couch is now installed . . . somewhere. Whatever. It’s close enough. Right? Totally. Mission accomplished, or something.