Taking Inventory
Like many women, I prefer that my living quarters not in any way resemble a fraternity house, which is why all I can think about these days is paint. Not that a coat of paint (or three, as it turns out) completely eliminates that Delta Tau Chi sort of ambiance, but it does go a long way. Take, for example, our spare room (or the book room, as I like to call it). Mere weeks ago the book room was not a book room at all; it was a dumping ground for useless crap -- empty kitty litter containers, broken storm windows, several non-functioning vacuums -- all bathed in the shiny glow of fake wood paneling. But now. . .NOW. . .the book room is a lovely shade of Carolina Blue (hey, where I come from that's a proper noun) containing exactly zero useless craps and approximately 500 books. Oh, also there's a futon. For visitors. Feel free.
So anyway, my point here is that I painted the spare room. Actually my real point is that before I could paint the spare room I had to de-crap-ify it, and you would not BELIEVE the useless Chris crap I found in the top of the closet. Sure, we all possess a fair amount of useless crap, but we don't all write things on our blogs like, "People, I beg you. Stop buying shit you don't need!" while the following items languish in our crap room closets:
- 13 unfinished fish carvings, with assorted driftwood
- a bike helmet
- 2 passports
- a pin made out of a dead fish
- an empty book of matches
- 2 packs of Wrigley's Doublemint gum (for double the refreshment, double the enjoyment, etc. I suppose)
- a stuffed teddy bear in Christmas attire
- assorted cards, including a Christmas card from some chick named Gita
- an invisible ink baseball game book
- a deck of playing cards wherein our current president appears in drag
- a little black book
- four (yes, FOUR) beanie babies
- a dirty dollar bill (with pictures of women licking VERY large penises rather than pictures of, say, George Washington)
- condoms (1 vanilla flavored and 1 black studded)
- 5 L.L. Bean catalogs
- the nametag of some chick named Denise, who once worked at The Tannery
- nude showgirl playing cards
- a smoke detector
- a pack of Dentyne Ice (avalanche mist)
- a toy gun
19 comments:
Wow! That is quite a list! I'm sure the condums, the passports, the dead fish pin, the dirty dollar bill, and the bike helmet all came from some long drunken fishing trip with "Gita". Ask him about it. I'm sure he has got a really good story to explain the whole thing. Besides, it would sure make for an entertaining post.
Doc
Hehehe!
Congratulations on the book room!
Gum. Why gum in the closet of the spare room? Gum in a drawer, gum in your pocket, gum in the kitchen cabinet, bedroom drawer, bathroom drawer... but the crap room closet? I dunno.
You obviously don't understand the subtle nuances of Chris' filing system.
And something tells me that 475 of those 500 books are yours...
That's some impressive junk. How did you pick the paint color? I ask because picking paint colors has led to some domestic conflict in these parts. I'm interested in how other couple pick colors without injuring each other.
Having just emptied out many many closets and drawers and stuff, I can tell you that that's mild, in the course of my decluttering, I have found a picnic basket filled with cassette tapes from the 1980s, at least 40 fondue forks and two fondue pots, I didn't know I owned even one fndue pot), several dozen candles, two baseballs (one pink), only ONE of my running shoes. I own at least 15 sets of pillow cases, four tiaras, two vintage lamps that I meant to rewire years ago...I have a lot of crap.
What kind of beanie babies...are they manly jungle creatures? Or are they unicorns and piggies?
How much for the empty book of matches?
uh, oh, it's the beginning of the end.
i worry about the gum. how long has it been in storage?
Um, how much for the nude showgirl playing cards, the filthy dollar bill and the toy gun?
I've changed my number since I gave him the matches.
I find that many men are missing the hand-to-garbage-pail piece of the "garbage identification" gene. My ex would take an empty matchbook, for instance, remove it from his jeans pocket, look at it, identify it mentally as being garbage, but then put it down on his dresser, or even in his dresser drawer, even though a trash can was mere inches away! As an experiment, I once spent weeks moving the trash can closer and closer to the area where he would stand each night and de-garbage his pants pockets, just to see if proximity would increase the percentage of garbage in the can vs. garbage deposited on or in the dresser.
It didn't.
L.L. Bean? I knew Chris was a closet Bean shopper!!!
Black studded? What the hell?
Megan makes it all sound so tawdry. Here's my explanation. You can call bullshit if you like, but I know the truth.
-Fishcarvings - yes, I still have some unfinished work.
-Bike Helmet - yes, I ride a bike sometimes.
-2 passports - One is my current one, one is my expired one that I kept as a memento.
-Fish pin - gift.
-Empty matchbook - was given to me by Frank Sinatra.
-Gum - I do chew gum.
-Teddy Bear - I had it in case one of my friends brought a kid over.
-Cards - Gita was an old college (platonic) friend.
-Baseball game book - no idea why I had that.
-Dubya in drag cards - They're hilarious!
-Little black book - actually a moleskin where I wrote shit that popped into my head. It contains no phone #s.
-Beanie babies. Again, for the kiddies. An old aunt thought they were so great and gave us them for x-mas.
-Dirty dollar bill - Left at my house by delinquent friends (and kept by me).
-Condoms - Friends were out at a local bar and bought them out of a machine in the restroom. I didn't even know they were there.
-LL Bean catologs - I buy most of my clothes there.
-Denise nametag. Leftover from the previous owners. Must've been their daughter's.
-Showgirl cards - Again, left by friends.
-Smoke detector - I took it down because it just kept beeping.
-Dentyne - Gum. Big deal.
-Toy gun - It shoots little foam rubber discs. The cat likes it.
Satisfied?
Actually, the expired passport is still a valid form of i.d. I carry mine when I travel abroad so I don't have to take out my current one all the time, which I usually have secured next to my body somewhere. I figure if I'm ever in the Congo and the bus gets jumped by a gang of robbers, they aren't going to realize it's expired.
Unfortunately, not all airport personnel realize that it's a valid form of i.d.
Likely story on the condoms.
And it begins. Remember...a million little changes.
Megan, go easy on him with the smoke detector. Although it probably should have been thrown in the trash, one simply cannot put up with incessant beeping. That creates madmen. We all like you and Chris too much to wish that upon you.
As a person who moved in with his boyfriend, I can relate. When cleaning out the boiler/storage room, I found a still dirty empty kitty litter pan. And he hadn't owned a cat in several years.
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