I’m sure that there is some hipster who found an old-style rolling suitcase in a thrift store and tried to promote it as being cooler, but five minutes of pulling one of those stupid things around and having it repeatedly fall over is enough to disabuse even the most tragically hip person of that notion.
Stranger
I recently replaced a suitcase and like you, found that two wheeled models are rare. I did get a four wheeled suitcase but it’s not what I would have preferred. Another disadvantage besides the wasted interior space is there’s no way to set it down on a sloped surface (like my driveway). The two wheeled type can be set with the wheels uphill and it will stay put. The four wheeled type just rolls away as soon as you let go of it.
I’m a small old lady who does heavy lifting every day because livestock, and have learned a few techniques I was not taught by any physical therapist but by my Pilates teacher. One: stand square to what you want to pick up. Two, you do not lift with your knees or your back, you lift with your core muscles; focus on engaging them before you do anything. Three, do not stop breathing. Holding your breath makes you more liable to injury.
Just about any grinding toil is going to be made more bearable if you develop a rhythm you can keep to without getting out of breath.
Has your wife recently taken out a large life insurance policy on you? Because it sounds to me like she’s trying to kill you.
I was going to say this too. For me, 4 wheels on a suitcase come in most handy when walking through a parking lot, where I can maneuver my suitcase on the ground in between cars if it’s a tight squeeze rather than having to pick to up and then lay it back down.
Moving heavy things needs planning, especially as we age. In addition to lifting, one should consider the problem of lowering.
About twenty years ago I was moving and needed to get something heavy off of the roof of my car and into the new place. Getting it off of the car and over my head was easy since it was already up there, but getting it DOWN in a controlled manner turned out to be more than my right bicep could manage, and it ruptured. Very uncomfortable, with half of it bunched in my shoulder and the other down at the elbow. Still looks pretty creepy.
OP, your wife also suffers from misconception 3 - The person doing the heavy lifting has any interest whatsoever in the opinion of the person not doing the heavy lifting.
The person doing the heavy lifting most certainly has an interest in the non-lifter’s opinion, if the non-lifter is deliberately getting in the lifter’s way.
The wife gets shoved out of the way.
Balance vs load? I’d rather carry twice the weight than be severely unbalanced.
You don’t even have to shove, if you’re carrying a heavy load just keep walking and the load itself will shove her aside. Which would be kinda satifying.
I do have an interest in what she thinks, though, because I need her to cooperate:
In the case of walking slowly vs. at a normal pace, I need her to not get in my way and to hurry ahead and hold open doors, in order for me to get to the destination before my grip gives out.
In the case of carrying one vs. two suitcases, I need her to let go of the damn second suitcase.
There has been talk upthread of carrying suitcases having been made totally irrelevant by wheeled luggage. I have to disagree with that. Many of the best hotels we have been to in the last years we have reached by walking a significant distance over cobbled streets or unpaved lanes (in old-part-of-town or rural locales), and/or there were several flights of stairs to carry our luggage up. I have ruined the wheels of one good wheeled suitcase when I was prevailed on to to pull not carry it over a long stretch of unpaved/unevenly paved sidewalk, and I am not going to ruin more of them.
I’ve found that the single greatest limiting factor when it comes to carrying anything for any distance is my hands getting tired. I’d much rather carry 20kg on my back then 5kg in each hand.
Can you try phrasing it as explaining that the total weight is well within your capacity, you’re just dividing it into two suitcases to improve your balance? Because I can’t help thinking that what she’s thinking is just “this is too much weight!” because it would be too much total weight for her to carry, and if she had to move the suitcases she would indeed be much better off moving them one at a time.
Maybe even put a combination of things that’s well within her weight limit but heavy enough to affect balance all in one suitcase, and have her carry it across the room in one hand; then divide that same weight into two suitcases and have her carry it back across the room, one in each hand.
If the argument keeps being in the format of “it’s easier to move two at once” versus “it’s easier to move one at a time!”, I don’t think either of you is going to convince the other.
– if stairs are involved, she may also want you to have a hand free for the handrail. Which isn’t silly, either. It may well be easier to go up or down stairs with one suitcase in each hand, because you’re balanced; but if you slip for any reason, it’s less safe than carrying one at a time with the other hand on the handrail. And it may in future be a lot harder to carry anything after you’ve bounced all the way back down the stairs.
Setting aside the physiological questions about how best to carry heavy loads…why is your wife so controlling?
Stranger
Good Sir/Madam I must ask you - are you, or have you ever been married?
They will get in the way… BECAUSE
I agree, they balance each other.
I find it amusing how this thread was started as
and immediately turned into
Perhaps most / all of us have never encountered these weird beliefs.
As to why OP’s wife is so “controlling”, which term is IMO a bit too hyperbolic, a lot of spouses really don’t want their spouse to be injured. And will get real insistent if they think injury is likely to result from whatever hare-brained thing hubby (or wife, but far more often hubby) is about to do.
But the overarching problem is that the OP has presumably carried weights before, and is more aware of his own capabilities, and the practices that work best for him, than his wife is. That’s why I say here opinion is unwanted, he’s the expert, for lack of a better term, at how he carries things, getting advice, instruction, and interference from a novice at how he carries things is unnecessary and unwanted.
Or maybe he sucks at carrying things and his wife knows it.