A comedian once said the bravest person in history was the first person ever to drink cow's milk. I'm not sure if that's bravery or something like some kind of an odd affliction, but I can say in my household, we have a different measure of bravery.
The bravest person in our home is the person who moves something. Or doesn't. It sort of depends.
It seems we have a little situation at the Lovely Smith Showroom and Semi-Public Library. Not a bug, exactly, as much as a feature. Depending, of course, on who exactly is being bugged or featured.
The ... situation ... is that, owing to various details of our professional and personal lives, we have a lot of stuff. On occasion and season, piles of it. But unlike true hoarders and, you know, people with problems, our piles of stuff kind of come and go.
Right now, for instance, our junk is sort of a three-pronged attack, coming at us from multiple directions. Owing to the Lovely Mrs. Smith's profession and the fact she's knee-deep in a project, Phase 1 of our current junkvasion is basically related to books, samples and the sorts of stuff an interior designer uses to make a house pretty. Which makes referring to it as a mess both dangerous and somewhat ironic.
Then, there is another pile committed to our daughter's upcoming wedding which, strangely enough, lives at our house. We still have a gross of prom dresses, every recital costume since she was barely old enough to walk, but definitely old enough to dance and, I'm pretty sure some high school graduation presents she meant to give about five years ago, so ... why not?
And, topping that, our youngest son who is involved in the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas has returned home for the summer, bringing with him everything he took down to Fayetteville plus everything he bought plus everything he was issued by the U.S. Army. So, yes, we really do look like we've been invaded.
Add to that the detritus the mail carrier brings daily, most of which seems to be bills for accounts we're paying through automatic deductions (which renders the bill both useless and redundant, if that's even possible), ads for odd stuff we'll never buy, coupons we might actually use if only we'd remember we have them and election flyers. All of which explains how two normally very tidy people periodically look around and wonder exactly what the heck just happened in here?
I, of course, will have to admit (or someone will admit it for me) that I'm not blameless in this. It seems I'm a magazine addict, which means I subscribe, literally, to the theory that those who can't should at least enjoy reading about running, biking, assorted sports, exotic locations and health 12 times a year.
So, the clutter breaks down in these categories. You've got the stuff that belongs to her. The stuff that belongs to me. The stuff that belongs to people who don't even live here year-round anymore. And the stuff none of us want, but are afraid to get rid of.
This is compounded by the fact elements of all of this stuff are important to each of us, but not the rest of us, on a sliding scale. And depending on when the coupon expired.
So whomever it belongs to doesn't want to move it because they either do or might need it. And the rest of the parties want to move it, but can't because of a lot of game theory concepts like Mutually Assured Destruction. And then there's the very real knowledge that if you touch it, you have to remember what you did with it, or whatever issue it was connected to becomes your problem.
All of this has sort of devolved into a pattern that repeats itself (which is why it's a pattern. Duh) over time. As soon as someone moves out, a project ends, I manage to read all the magazines or we collectively realize that bill was from last November and probably got paid, we steel ourselves and start throwing away or recycling, whichever is easier and makes us feel less guilty.
And we internally congratulate ourselves on the personal courage it took to do what had to be done, junk-wise, in the face of almost certainly familial displeasure and the nagging realization that we actually probably did need some of that.
But the house is clean, sanity is restored and we can all feel better about ourselves. As long as none of us go in the garage.
Commentary on 05/18/2018