Moving and me. Until recently, it didn’t happen often. Until today it never happened without me doing much/most of the heavy lifting.

There comes a time in life, however, when hauling couches around is probably not a good idea. Or renting a dolly to move those boxes of books.

So, we decided to spend the $300 for six guys to pack us up and move us from 19th Street to 27th.

It was amazing to watch them work.

I have never been around professional movers. Certainly not around professional movers from India.

These guys swarmed the place. One in the bedroom packing clothes. Two in the living room breaking down and wrapping furniture. One taking down shelves. And the fifth taking apart and packing the kitchen.

The comment often heard, here in Abu Dhabi, in connection to movers from the subcontinent, is that you have to be very specific about what is not part of the move — because they will pack everything else. Including trash.

I parked myself as out of the way as possible, and tried to watch them all along, but they still packed two rugs intended for disposal, as well as some broken bits of plumbing that were in that apartment when we arrived.

It took them maybe 90 minutes to pack everything. In boxes with bubble wrap, or swaddled in plain plastic sheets and wrapped in blankets.

Included in their targets were every item in the refrigerator and freezer. Actually, they were beginning to pack the fridge itself when I reminded them it didn’t belong to me — and would be leaving it.

So, we moved about three miles closer to the mainland. Into a tower. On the eighth floor. A fairly new place that may never have been lived in.

The place is modern and has a view and comes with appliances, but we were not sure if our furniture would quite fit.

And with five guys putting your stuff away from you, all you can do is shrug and watch. The guy putting away kitchen items (his specialty, it seemed) didn’t do it the way most of us would, but how do you nitpick when he’s going 100 miles per hour?

The whole thing, from box-up to hanging clothes and filling drawers, breaking down boxes and lugging them back out to their truck was 3.5 hours. For, yes, $300. And that is expensive, here.

These were real movers. With uniforms and everything. A sauntering forman, too, whose main job seemed to be to secure my signature, accept a check and to put a piece of tape labelled “no” on things I wanted left behind.

The pace of it was dizzying. And when they left the new place, I flopped on the old couch — and was tired on their behalf. Though I hardly lifted a finger.

I can get used to this someone else doing the lifting.