Moving is terrible

Dear Hipster:

How obligated, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not at all obligated and 10 being completely and unavoidably obligated, am I to actually help a friend move out of his apartment when I offered to do so as a kindness and based on the assumption that he would probably tell me to forget about it, or at least forget about it himself when moving day actually came around?

— Brandon

You are, as they say, screwed. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders — the most famous of which is to get involved in a land war in Asia. “The second most famous, only slightly less well-known, is, “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line,” and only slightly less famous than that is, "Don’t offer to help anyone move, unless Mylie Cyrus is about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame following a stirring speech by Morrissey and Johnny Marr (who agree to work out their differences for the sake of Hannah Montana), because then it would be obvious that the world will soon end in a cosmic shrug of smoldering indifference, effectively releasing you from moving-day duties."

Really, I’m surprised you haven’t heard that one. It’s saved me a few times. Some also say that an offer of help moving is only as good as the invisible paper it’s printed on with invisible ink that can only be read by the light of an eclipsed supermoon, so there’s that, too.

One nugget of real wisdom: offer to help for a predetermined X number of hours, where X is a number you can reasonably stand to work without tanking your friendship. Then, bail.