Where did I put that
hammer?
I am not an organized person, as my garage will attest. My
wife is forever after me to clean it up, and I have several times over the past
twelve years. It only lasts a week or so and then it gradually morphs back into
a monstrous death trap for the unexpected. You will never find my wife in the
garage. She will not even open the door. If she wants me, she yells through the
door. I spent many years in the Navy, so I know how to organize my things in
neat segregated areas. It's a necessity, especially when aboard ship where one
only has a few cubic feet of personal space and you durst not infringe on
someone else's. I thought being a civilian negated all that neat freak stuff.
Wives think otherwise and do not hesitate to let you know.
This is just one corner on my garage/collection
site.
In my garage, I have built cabinets with drawers and workbenches
with tons of pegboards. I have a dozens of toolboxes stored under, in and on my
workbenches and stored in unknown cubbyholes. And between spaces are miles and
miles of shelves. Believe me, there is a place for everything, yet nothing in is
ever in its place. Passing through my garage is like going through a hazardous
maze laden with booby traps. Many times, I have been lost for hours while
navigating form one end of the garage to the other. I usually end up bloodied,
crippled, and apprehensive, which usually takes me several weeks to recover.
Like my wife, at times, I too, hesitate to enter this strange territory of yesterday
and tomorrow. I keep threatening to get rid of it all.
How does one rid himself of a lifetime of gathering? It
takes me months to make order in the garage. I find memories in each tool I
pick up. Every time I come across an unusable or antiquated tool, it is painful
to lay it to rest. My wife keeps suggesting I have a garage sale. This is not
an option either. That would be like selling your child. I would rather give
them away. but I cannot bring myself to that either. Yet, it is a pity and a
shame to let them deteriorate into uselessness. Most of what I have has been
laying dormant for a decade and a half.
Every time I use a tool or something, when I'm finished with
it, I never put it back where it belongs. I'm usually too tired, or more aptly,
too lazy, and truthfully, I can say I'm not lazy either. It's just a terrible
habit. I lay or throw whatever I was using onto THE workbench; the one I never
do any work on, the one just inside the door, the door I must go through to get
to my favorite chair where I watch TV.
The next time I need that tool, it's nowhere to be found. I
cannot remember when I last used or saw it. It's not in the place I made for
it. I looked there several times. I scanned the cluttered bench where I found
many other items I haven't seen in eons. I found everything but what I was
looking for. After several trips around the garage searching in corners and
cubbyholes without any luck, I settle down to rooting through the pile of stuff
on the catchall bench forgetting what I was looking for. When I finally give up
the search, I usually trip over the dumb thing while wading through the clutter
on the way to the door.
Then I begin a fifteen-minute rant of screaming, cussing,
jumping up and down and threatening to clean the damn place up. After searching
for thirty minutes for the right hammer, I pound in the dumb nail that took me
another thirty minutes to find, hoping the wife does not change her mind about
where she wants her dumb picture hung. I finish my chore in thirty-seconds. Then,
what do I do? Is there any need to say it?
It's the same in my corner of the computer/sewing room.
However, everything is within arm's reach. I still get involved in thirty
minute or hour long searching sessions for something that seems not to be there.
Yet I know it is. Post-it notes drive me crazy. I cannot read my own writing
and what I'm looking for sits there in front of my face unnoticed.
This is where I spend three quarters of my
day.
What if I take out the catchall-workbench and install a wall
of shelves in its place. I could see everything on open shelves. Yeah, right, like
all the other open shelves loaded down with boxes upon boxes. I'll put that on
my to-do list. Now where did I see that last?
Lifetime habits cannot be broken. I know better than that
too. They can and I have proven that to myself many times. I hate to say it
but, I just lack the desire. Therefore, I will shut up and quit belly aching. I
will continue to lay in the bed I have made. Thanks for letting me steal your
time to read my rants. Have a pleasant day. Ray
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