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My spouse spends a lot of time standing around our garage mumbling under his breath. And no, he's not losing it. He's looking for something – something he put in there months ago, something he won't find again without help from a team of bloodhounds and a crack squad from the FBI's criminal forensics lab. Let me explain. You know how everyone either has a junk drawer or another repository for dumping all those little things that have no real place? And you know how those things eventually build up until it's so full that you have to either clean it out or find another place to put those all-important junky things, like key chains and books of matches and screws you found but don't know what they belong to but are afraid to throw out because as soon as you do, you'll discover you need them? Well, the garage is my husband's junk drawer. And it's full. So full that to say "it's full" is like claiming Elvis leaned toward sequins. Our garage couldn't hold a Matchbox car, much less a real one. And that's because it's jammed from floor to ceiling with junk. Well, I call it junk. He calls it "important stuff." His important stuff changes every few years, but it never diminishes. This man never parts with anything. Even stuff with no discernable purpose. Even stuff he can't identify. Even stuff that's certifiably trash. There are threadbare lawn furniture cushions, rusty nails, pieces of wood, empty bottles, electronic items that no longer work, clothes, boxes of old magazines, papers he's never had time to look through, yard equipment, a bed frame, empty boxes, cans and trash bags filled with what other, less junky people would call "garbage." I suspect that, years from now, when archaeologists find our garage and crack it open, they'll conclude the Homo sapien who lived there was the size of a walnut, because that's about all that would fit in there. My hubby refers to the garage as his workshop. And it really is crammed with tools. Of course, he can't actually get to any of them because every available inch of the garage is stuffed with everything else, which is why we also have a tool box inside the house. Some day he's going to clean it out. Probably the same day we establish a colony on Mars. But, the scary thing is, just when you think there's no way anything else will fit into that garage, he manages to wedge in another item. And, unfortunately, I am now one of his unwitting accomplices. My friend and neighbor, Connie, has a shed she wanted cleaned out. It was full of stuff she neither needed, nor wanted, and wasn't even sure what some of it was. I told her I'd send my spouse down to look it over and let her know if there was anything of value so she could sell it, rather than simply throw it away. Big mistake. He went to Connie's. He checked out the shed. I was gone and when I returned home, the kids said she'd called. Why? To apologize. Because, you see, when my husband was down there he offered to clean out the shed for her. Nice guy, huh? Think again. He bought all the junk in her shed and is now hauling it down the street to put in our garage where he'll stumble over it for the next decade or so. I thought I'd seen it all, but I hadn't. He no longer collects and stores only his own junk in the garage. Instead, he's diversifying, like he's the CEO of some big company. And instead of simply generating junk on his own, he's changed his tactics and has started importing other people's junk.It's finally happened – he's gone global. |
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