Cleaning House – Or At Least The Garage

I find it amazing that when your spouse, who, for over 30 years, worked within the confines of a traditional bricks and mortar office and is now forced to work remotely, can somehow find the time to point out all the domestic chores that absolutely, positively must be completed after living in the same location since the late 90's and remaining relatively silent.

Case in point, the primary to-do item on our COVID-19 quarantine was to “straighten” the garage. Now she and I have very different definitions of the verb “straighten.” Hers is more of an orderly assembly of shelves and floor space. Conversely, mine is a wholesale purge of items, some dating back to the Clinton Administration.

Case in point.

After wading through years of accumulated dust and debris I discovered in order: four cases of glass block (left over from when we redid a shower in 1998; two over-sized buckets of roof tar and five packs of shingles from 1997; a tool kit containing two colossal-sized plumbing wrenches capable of unsealing bolts on a water main; a box of six brass doorknobs (origin unknown); two cartons of electrical wire; a box of insulation; a wide roll of metal coil; a used doorbell and a small fish tank.

Now I enjoy a pretty good relationship with the folks who service our waste management needs. I follow the rules alternating weeks of paper and cardboard and recyclables and always leave a nice tip for them around the holidays.

But there are limits to what and how much they will cart off. So, I gradually put small to mid-sized amounts curbside and called a junk removal specialist to haul away the big items. Now to maintain peace and harmony in my marital relationship I made sure she was going to be out of the house when the truck came ambling down our street. I did not want to be the featured couple on an episode of “Divorce Court.”

The driver inspected the load in question and since they charge on weight pulled out his calculator and worked the numbers. “You got a lot of stuff here mister.”

No kidding. That’s what happens during two decades of hoarding. Finally, he came up with a price that was higher than I’d expected, but I had very little leverage to negotiate.

When she returned several hours later, she was literally nonplussed at the transformation. I told her I took her advice and just reorganized everything.

Let’s keep that just between us.