Writing Desk - Essential, Right?

I'm so excited to be working on my first novel! and of course, every writer needs a good desk, correct?

Down the street, there was this beautiful desk that was on someone's front porch. "FREE DESK" was announced on a piece of paper taped to the front. "That's cool," I thought as I headed out that morning. When I headed back home, I saw that it was still there. "Someone hasn't claimed it yet?" I thought, surprised. It was gorgeous, though a bit big. But gorgeous.

I hurried home to set my stuff down, and then hurried back to ring the doorbell. I was going to claim that desk. No one answered, so I headed back home to grab a piece of paper and a pen, where I constructed a note saying something like,

I'm expressing interest in the free desk that you have advertised. If no one has claimed it yet, I would very much like to.

You can contact me at --- --- ---- anytime.

Thank you,

Kristen Camino

and then I hurried to tape it to their front door.

Later that night, the lady called me back and told me that I got the desk! I kept myself professional as I thanked her and asked if I could come pick it up tomorrow, and she accepted and told me to just give her a call before I came over.

I called the next day in the afternoon and asked if I could come get it between 5:30 and 6. She said that that would be fine, just make sure I rang the doorbell to let her know I was there.

I waited for my dad and brothers to get home, but it turned out that my younger brother was auditioning for a talent show that night and we had no idea when he was coming home. So my 9-year-old sister and I headed over there by ourselves, thinking that we could just easily carry it home.

When we rang the doorbell and the lady came to the door, she took one look at us and asked if we had a truck. "No," I said, and then proceeded to explain how my dad and brother's weren't there and our plan to just go ahead and grab the desk because we were probably strong enough and could get it home with only a minor struggle. The lady laughed and said that maybe my dad and brothers could carry it, but more possibly we'd have to bring a dolly and wheel it home.

My sister and I went ahead and made two trips to bring all the drawers home in our arms. When we got home from the second trip, my brothers and dad were just pulling in the driveway. I hurried out to meet them and told them that I needed help carrying the desk home, so my brothers and sister and I headed out once again.

It was STILL too heavy for us. We were struggling along, making frequent breaks to set it down and rest our shaking arms and aching muscles. The older of my youngest brothers suddenly ran off, and since he was the strongest of all of us we were very annoyed, but still struggled on in attempts to bring home my new desk (It was just down the street - but carrying heavy objects seems to make distances longer).

When he returned, it was with two scooters and a skateboard. He had us move out of the way and then showed us a plan that would work - he put the desk on top of the skateboard in the back, and then two scooters in the front. Of course, the desk had to be positioned just perfectly on the scooters so that the brakes weren't constantly being pushed upon, so two of us managed the scooter, one put weight on the skateboard and helped push the desk, and then the other helped to steer and hold it up a bit.

It worked perfectly! With minor faults and some bumping around, we got the desk home much sooner than we would have otherwise. For every car that passed us we ducked our heads down and said aloud, "Please don't look at us like we're crazy. Please don't look at us like we're crazy. Please..."

When we got home and pulled the cars out of the driveway, we somehow managed to huff and puff and get it into the house and into my room. But as we all stood there looking at it, the desk took up half of my room and left basically no space to do anything else.

"I'm in love with this desk..." I protested as everyone laughed.

But we ended up moving it out of my room and into a room that was already full of desks.

But besides that, I now have a huge, beautiful writing desk to call my own - for FREE. and The drawers are already being filled with notepads, pens, and sticky notes.

Writing is most definitely an adventure.