Posted on 11/14/2005 6:22:59 PM PST by SJackson
My wife’s decided what she wants for Christmas — a Dumpster.
Not to keep, mind you, just long enough to fill it up. A second one then might be in order.
It all started with an innocuous question: What’s in that thing?
“That thing” was one of the ubiquitous Rubbermaid bins that have transformed yesteryear’s random piles of tattered pasteboard cartons into tidy, tasteful storage. What was in it had been there a while — darn near a decade, if the cancelled checks are to be believed — taking up room in a closet we couldn’t reliably close the door on for months.
We were about to shove it back onto the shelf when rationality seized us. We did not need this stuff. We really didn’t want this stuff. Why were we putting this stuff back on the self?
We resolved, instead, to throw it away — an action simpler in concept than in execution.
There were several cubic feet of detritus of the contemporary domestic consumer economy, receipts, tax records, canceled checks, bank statements — the paperwork that lodges in our lodgings nearly forever, in case someday the taxman wants proof we really did buy celery on the 15th of January and paid for it by check.
Once was the time that disposing of such stuff was not only straightforward, it was kind of fun. All boys are pyromaniacs by nature, and a man is just a boy gone to seed. A boy of any age knows a pile of paper is just a bonfire waiting to happen, so by all that’s right, that binful was no more than a pint of gasoline and the scratch of a match away from a most satisfying destruction.
But all is not right. Living in the city means denying my inner-firebug in deference to fines and public humiliation. But simply stuffing evidence of years of financial misdeeds into a black plastic bag and setting it on the curb offered too great a chance that curiosity would overtake wandering city wildlife or feral neighbor kids, spreading name, date and account numbers to the wind and forever leaving my neighbor to wonder what my $44.67 check to Victoria’s Secret was for.
So I got out a trash can and the shredder and set my self to reducing the evidence of half a decade of family income to so much confetti. Sic transit gloria money.
Meanwhile, Gayle became inspired. Standing firm on a scaffold of kitchen chairs, she was pulling bin after bin from high closet shelves, popping the lids and peering inside. It was clear that my March 28, 1997, bar tab and the overdraft notice from September 1993 were not the only items taking up more space than their value warranted. There was more. A lot more. Three bags more from the bathroom alone.
Understand, we have a very ordinary bathroom. Compared with the bathrooms in House Beautiful, it’s a very, very ordinary bathroom, furnished with the appropriate fixtures, but with only a reasonably roomy cabinet beneath the sink and a narrow, shallow closet for storing towels and such.
It is truly amazing how much “and such” can fit in such limited spaces — three large, black trash bags full to be reasonably precise.
What is even more amazing is that said closet and cabinet appear to be just as full of towels and such as ever.
With nearly a hundredweight of previously vital financial records reduced to ticker-tape, there are two bins and a filing cabinet to go. And those are just the ones we found on the main floor. In the cellar the tidy stack remains clothed in dust and cobwebs, untouched, unopened and blocking the path to the furnace. The old magazines are behind it. The clothing too good to throw away but too tattered to wear is stacked up on the right. And down at the mall, the merchants are gearing up for the season to sell us more stuff.
This year, we have a short list.
A lost cause, as it were .. as every days mail brings half a dozen new credit card applications (YOU ARE PRE-APPROVED!!) which need to be ripped up by that shredder ... yer just treading water on this. Not to even mention all those "Balance Transfer" checks that come in the mail for the credit cards that you already have ....
SHEESH !! I'm on at least my 3rd can of 3-in-1 oil this year just keeping the blades of my shredder lubricated so that it doesn't choke on all this stuff!
Weeding out collected financial records from 15 years ago? Man, you're ahead of the game if you can acually accomplish that !!!
I moved into my present home 10 years ago and still havent opened all the boxes I packed at the last one--probably never will.
I wish I had the small fortune that would be required to buy enough rubbermaid containers to put all my crap in.
Then maybe I could stack them high enough to get my car in the garage. Or heck, build a garage out of them.
I have sealed boxes from the move before last! My husband used to be military... I want so much to just toss the whole darn box, but I'm afraid there is something priceless in there and I'm just too lazy to check.
I'd be a truly happy man if my wife asked for a dumpster for Christmas.
For those who are interested in getting control of this stuff, I would like to suggest www.flylady.net. I have used this lady's system and it works!
For me, financial records would be a good start. In reality, I could probably fill 2 or 3 dumpsters to capacity with junk I could just throw away and never miss.
Not all that long ago, I found some great Personal Computer components in a dumpster behind my workplace. I was all excited until I realized that these were things that my wife had brought from our house and chucked into the dumpster! She vowed to never again use the dumpsters at our place. True story.
Miss Marple: I love Flylady too. Just checked her site for tomorrow's mission. JILL
Good grief, I have maybe 12-15 totes with PC parts in them. Hard-drives, CD drives, modems, video cards, sound cards, you name it. You want them, they are free to a good home. I'm taking them to the Salvation Army soon, along with a bunch of other junks I have that doesn't seem dump-worthy.
Ooops...missed the part where he did....
I scanned to quick thru the article...
You know, I was really happy. We're unpacked from the move last August, my wall is built, my kitchen island is finished and last weekend my husband just put the doors on the pantry I built. Just this morning I gathered my family and vowed *not* to start another project until after the holidays.
Now I'm going to be researching newspaper and rubble construction methods for the next month. (They are not going to like you one bit after I tell them it was all your fault!)
I call mine the Rubbermaid Archives. The minute I turn it into dumpster food, I'm going to need something really badly. You watch.
Do you really polish your sink everyday? I'm astounded by the housekeeping on that site.
On second thought, Please don't ever post that link again...I'm concerned someone else in my household might see it. LOL
I SWEAR by following those routines. You don't get it all done in one day, or even a month. But slowly decluttering (for 15 minutes at a time, daily) and establishing a morning routine (which I can do in half an hour) really does work.
I have been married for 30 years, and the last year is the first time I have never been ashamed if company drops in. And I don't spend all day doing housework, either. (All you have to do is to check on my postings and you would know that I am here a great deal.)
Well, it's not for everyone, but it sure did work for me!
*****************
Thanks for the link! I spent hours yesterday in the basement, filling garbage bags and vacuuming. I'm in the midst of de-cluttering.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.