My friend Heidi recently had a dumpster delivered to her house. There is absolutely nothing that she could have acquired that would have me more jealous than this dumpster. Heidi was getting to throw out that the junk she'd accumulated over the years. I was not to be so lucky.
Back in California we didn't have a basement. This kept the crap somewhat under control. All we had was a garage, and there's a limit to how much stuff you can cram into a garage and still be able to get the cars inside. After a while, Ted started storing his "treasures" (crap) at Public Storage. My position was that as long as I didn't have to see it, I could pretend we didn't own it.
Then all hell broke loose. We moved east and we bought a big, old house with a basement. All bets were off. We could now throw everything we didn't know what to do with down there. After a while, there was so much stuff, no one individual thing stood out as being unnecessary. Now, after eleven years in our house, the basement looks like an episode from Hoarders.
This scares me because I am, at heart, a thrower-outer. I don't like stuff. I'm the one who throws out the birthday cards the day after my birthday because well, I've read them so why do I need to keep them? I'm the one who has a continual give away pile.
I am afraid that this is not the case for my beloved husband. He has travel magazines from 10 years ago, and before disposing of even one year's worth, he has to painstakingly go through each magazine to ascertain that there is no valuable information inside. After all, those hotel and restaurant recommendations from 1995 may prove useful. Four years ago, his parents moved out of their home of over 50 years. Ted collected several boxes worth of momentos and they are still in the same pile he put them in back then. Untouched.
The point of all this is that Heidi got a dumpster and I want one too. I really need about four dumpsters, but I'll take one. Ted is unenthusiastic about said clean out project, but I am going to prevail. We are going to clean out. We are going to wade into the deep recesses of the basement and get rid of that luggage that we haven't used in 25 years. We are going to rid ourselves of all those free tote bags advertising sporting good stores, fundraisers, and the like. We are going to get rid of those Calphalon pots and pans that have been rusting away for at least 10 years. We are finally going to sweep the basement floor -- once we find it.
Ted says that we need to wait for a good time to get the dumpster. I think he really means that we need to wait until hell freezes over to get the dumpster. But I am not to be deterred. I'm calling today. We are cleaning out.
Not to worry, no doubt there will be a massive donation to some worthy charity. But somehow I doubt they'll have much use for Ted's old travel magazines. Then again, neither does he.
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