My wife and I moved this weekend. Three of our friends — Charly Franks, Robert Prouse and Jimmy Simmons — came to help move boxes and furniture down what Charly affectionately calls “the goat path”.

He named it that after having helped me move some bookcases up it. This weekend we all climbed up and down stairs cut into the sides of hills. We carried boxes of books, DVDs, cassettes, pictures, dishes and other kitchen utensils and, yes, those same book cases. We cleaned up the old place, sweeping, scrubbing and mopping.

Along the way we stopped to talk with people here or there. Our former landlord, Dr. Brent Williams, was out in the yard pruning a tree.

He and his wife had just had their third child, and Mrs. Williams brought him down from the house, all bundled up, so that we could see him. His two older sisters were running around the patio as well.

Although we needed to move in order to get a slightly larger place, we loved the poolside apartment that overlooks Bond Bay, and we genuinely care for Brent and his family. We like our new place, but it was sad to leave the older one. Today, after two days of such moving, my body is screaming at me with every move. “YOU IDIOT! What were you thinking? You’ve been out of the gym for over two years.”

I cannot get up from sitting down without groaning, and the groans come automatically, without hardly noticing because they are so natural and appropriate. Not only my muscles, but also my bones ache.

So, we got everything out of the old place, and in the process we acquired some new furniture.

One piece is a sectional. In the middle of moving, with boxes and boxes of boxes all over the place, my wife and I got into an argument about where to put the sectional.

She wanted to put it in front of the bookcases, but I thought by the time you did that, the sectional would be half way out into the middle of the room.

So, I broke up the sectional and arranged it with the two sides facing one another and a matching chair at one end.

The bookcases became incorporated into that arrangement, and a coffee table sat in between.

Feeling especially proud of my engineering genius, my ability to organise and problem solve around such usually male strong suits as special geography, I sat down for a moment to enjoy it when my wife walked in, looked it over, and said, “Satisfied now, Mr. Perfect?” (I am paraphrasing.)

Completely spent physically, we began to yell at one another, and then she announced she would meet me in the car so we could attend to the next errand.

However, before I could join her, I had to lock the place up. I stood there for 20 minutes going over and over the sequence for locking these very nice french doors. When it came time to turn the lock, I inserted the key, but the lock would not turn.

Each time it would not turn. I tried it this way. I tried it that way. I tried it again each way just to make sure I had tried it enough, some magic might come to pass, or I might find favour with the gods of such lock manufacturers. NO! Finally, I realised I was trying to get the job done with the wrong key.

When I joined my wife in the car, she wanted to know, of course, what had taken so long.

I was quiet at first. Then, I confessed that Mr. Perfect had taken so long because he had been trying to lock the door with the wrong key, and that’s when we both started laughing. At the end of our resources, that laughter felt good.

Regardless, I want to know what it is about varied-shaped furniture in a rectangular room that brings out the monster in people.

My wife has announced that she’s not through with that arrangement yet, so I might well return to a whole new “solution” when I get home. People make a living doing that kind of thing, right? I am just sure there must be some psychological research literature on this that I can trot out to support me.

Surely, this relates to our executive functions or a sound mind. Then again, what might the literature say about a person who stands for twenty minutes trying to lock a door with the wrong key?

Hmmmm. Best leave this alone and just sit on the sectional wherever I can find it.