Intermediate Listening Practice

Theo: How many boxes are left up there?

Jess: I counted twelve. Maybe thirteen. And the bookshelf.

Theo: The bookshelf. Right. I forgot about the bookshelf.

Jess: It's heavy, too. She's got about a hundred books on it and I don't think she packed them separately.

Theo: So we're carrying a full bookshelf down three flights of stairs.

Jess: That's what it looks like.

Theo: Great. Has anyone ever told Megan she owns too much stuff?

Jess: I think she knows. She apologized twice this morning and she brought doughnuts, which I took as an admission of guilt.

Theo: The doughnuts were good, I'll give her that. Where is she, anyway?

Jess: She's at the new place, cleaning the kitchen before we bring everything in. She said she didn't want to put her things into a dirty apartment.

Theo: That's fair. Do we know if the couch is going in the truck or not?

Jess: We already tried. It doesn't fit through the front door of the building. We turned it sideways, upside down, every angle. It's not happening.

Theo: So what's the plan?

Jess: She said she'd sell it online and buy a smaller one. She didn't seem too upset about it, actually. I think she was already tired of it.

Theo: I moved last year and I had the same problem with a desk. I ended up leaving it on the sidewalk with a sign that said "free" and it was gone in twenty minutes.

Jess: Someone took your desk off the sidewalk in twenty minutes?

Theo: I was amazed. I watched from the window. A guy pulled up in a van, looked at it, picked it up, and drove away. The whole thing took about two minutes.

Jess: That's impressive. When I moved, which was five years ago now, I hired movers and it was still a disaster. They scratched the hallway wall, they dropped a box of glasses, and one of them asked me where the nearest bar was at eleven in the morning.

Theo: Did you tell him?

Jess: I did, actually. He seemed like he needed it.

Theo: What's in this box? It weighs a ton.

Jess: It says "kitchen" on the side. Probably pots and pans.

Theo: She labelled everything. Every single box has a label and a number. There's a spreadsheet somewhere, I saw it on her phone.

Jess: That's very Megan. When we were at university together, she colour-coded her notes by subject and by week. I thought it was excessive at the time, but she got better marks than me, so maybe she was right.

Theo: I should be more organized. Last time I moved, I put everything in garbage bags and just hoped for the best.

Jess: That explains a lot.

Theo: It worked out fine. Mostly. I lost a few things.

Jess: What did you lose?

Theo: A lamp. Some towels. One shoe, which I still don't understand. How do you lose one shoe?

Jess: I don't know, but that feels like a very you problem.

Theo: Probably. Okay, I'll take the kitchen box. Can you grab the two smaller ones behind it?

Jess: Got them. Who's bringing lunch, by the way? I was promised lunch.

Theo: Megan said she'd order something when we're done with the truck. She said pizza.

Jess: Good. I think we've earned it.

Theo: We've earned a lot more than pizza, but I'll take what I can get.