What Was I Thinking?

It’s funny what you learn about yourself while cleaning things you haven’t cleaned in some nineteen years. That’s how long my husband and I have been in this house. That’s how long we’ve had to fill every nook and cranny of every drawer and cabinet. Okay, okay…  I’ve already admitted to how we are a couple of packrats. So you know I have a tendency to “keep stuff.” I think I got that from my father whose collection ran more along the line of farm equipment and other rusty, old mechanical stuff. Dad had more room than I do so his collection was far more magnificent than mine. I remember one day when he came home all excited because he found a fire truck for sale. A fire truck! Mom wouldn’t let him buy it though. For obvious reasons.

Dad collected lots of other stuff though—stuff folks thought was pretty useless and didn’t want anymore. And he’d usually find a way to put his miscellaneous assortment to work. Like the time someone rolled their car on the curve that ran in the front of the house. See we lived on a really sharp curve. One that people would constantly misjudge. We saw a lot of accidents while we lived there and somehow dad (always the negotiator) would find a way to capitalize. So there was the time of the rolled Corvair. The engine was good but the body was trashed. So Dad talked the owner out of it, tossed the motor into one pile and the body into another. Long about the time I was to get my license, Dad ran across another Corvair owner, one who’d blown his engine. So he talked the owner out of that too. Then he put the two good parts together and made my first car.

Dad was like that. Practical. Me, I just save stupid stuff. Like the things I ran across when I was cleaning out the master bath. Apparently, I’ve saved every “extra button” that came with every garment I’ve bought in the last nineteen years. Just tossed them into an extra drawer.

And those tiny locks that go on luggage when you travel? Seems I bought a new one every time I had a need for one. 

And then there are the more curious aspects to my adventure in cleaning. I mean . . . really? How many pregnancy test kits and condoms does one pre-menopausal woman need anyway?

Regardless of whether I got my hording hormone from Dad, it seems pretty clear that he was better at it than I am. At least he got to do something with most of the stuff he collected. But me? Pssshhh

Anyone need a button? Or a lock? How about a fifteen year old condom? I think I'm finally going to toss them . . . going . . . going . . .

Oh, maybe not.