The Storage Unit

The Party Cats have graciously allowed me, Nanny Slave, to utilize their account to perform this guest blogging stint. Readers of Writer & Cat, please bear with me. I’ve got some stuff to say….

Throughout my 30+ years, I have lived in a variety of environs. An assortment of dorm rooms, apartments, and houses in several different states, really. Not that I could rattle off the address of any of these locales if queried, so I’ll be in trouble if I ever get audited. (Wait, do they even bother to audit people who make less than 10k a year? And can’t they just call up the IRS for my previous mailing addresses? But then again, it would be the IRS doing the auditing, wouldn’t it? Hmmm, a circular conundrum, indeed.) Over the years, in all of these places, I acquired things. Lots of wonderful things. I even acquired a roommate for 8 of those years and he also acquired things. Lots of random, useless, stupid things. When I moved home to live with my mother a few years ago (because I am that awesome), I had to procure a Storage Unit for to house all these things. Considering that I was moving home to live with my mother, I was not in a tip-top state of mind at this point in my life and packed accordingly: open box, fill with nearby things, shut box, tape. Clink, tinkle, clang. Oh, did something break? Pffft. Repeat 99 times. The former roommate (hereafter FR) skipped out of the picture with nary a glance back at his many things. And in said Storage Unit all these things, the roommate’s and mine, have nestled for almost 4 long years, waiting for their chance at a grand resurrection, to again bring me great clutter and joy. And perhaps great rage as well, considering the percentage of things that are not even mine and yet here I am having to deal with them.

Anyway, that time has come! A wonderful man has fallen madly in love with me and is buying me a house in which to reside with him forever more. However, as I want this man to continue to love me madly, I hesitate to drag quite all of the THINGS to the fabulous new home. Thus, I must throw open the gates of Storage and sift through my past in all its disorderly glory. As a precursor, here is a list of possible items I will encounter along the way:

1. Four curling irons and two sets of hot rollers. Which is funny because I have had less than two inches of hair for most of the past 18 years. And I have certainly never had the mad tonsorial skills required to wield such equipment.

2. A large box of stuffed monkeys of assorted sizes, colors and species. Plus, some plastic Smurfs, a stuffed Lurky (a la Rainbow Brite), and a few Barbie dolls.

3. Large amounts of discarded metal, including a lawn mower engine, the innards of a Wang computer, aluminum siding, and/or the muffler of a 1982 Buick Regal. FR fancied himself a bit of an industrial artist and planned to create an homage to scrap. HE was SCRAP.

4. A skateboard that I stole from this guy I had a big crush on and hid in the bottom of my closet and forgot about until after I had realized he was a turd and then obviously, like I was going to give it back then?

5. Some unused Pampers from the time my sister, mom, and baby niece drove to Wisconsin to visit me. I kept them around in case I ever found a baby and it needed a diaper change.

6. Billing statements from my dorm room phone line 15 years ago. All paid in full, of course. But still available, just in case…..

7. A matching but battered green chair and ottoman from my grandmother’s house. It used to sit in my great-aunt’s bedroom next to the smelly armoire with the squeaky drawers. The chair used to be flowered, but Granny covered it with green using a staple gun. My mom hates that chair.

8. More than 40 cookbooks. None that have been used, though, since I don’t cook. But with lovely photographs of food that someone else cooked.

9. Several tens of overdraft notices from when FR opened a bank account with $50 and wrote nearly $200 of checks while having no cash flow with which to replenish the account. Did I mention that he was SCRAP?

10. One of those save-your-back exercise balls for doing sit-ups. But my cat gnawed through the tube of the pumper-upper, although it took me 20 minutes to figure this out the time I tried to air up the ball and crunch my way to six-pack abs. Hey, now I can blame the cat for my flabby gut!

Anyway, stay tuned. This is going to be a wild ride.