“Moving is good, because you’re forced to get rid of a lot of stuff that’s been building up over the years.”
This is what people are telling me. They say this after they see me walking to the curb on garbage day, sobbing, carrying bags of perfectly good, cool stuff, and dragging the Barbie Dream House behind me. They’re only saying that because they want me to feel better. They try to convince me that there’s an upside to this, a bright side.
What did you say? The glass is half full? I’ll crush your glass with my bare hands. Then how full will it be?
If there’s truth in that statement, though, here’s what I now have in my house that won’t be coming with us:
◉ Socks with holes in them. This would be all of my socks. Note to self: Go to Walmart and buy socks.
◉ The $3.88 cookie sheet I bought in 1989 and burned cookies on dozens of times. It still works, but so would any piece of scrap metal from a car wreck. My cookie sheet is a slab of black, burned steel. It’s not coming.
◉ The sleds. We’re moving to south Florida. ‘nuff said.
◉ Chargers for small electronics that I can’t match up with items. I’ve got a box of 16 of them, all black, all with different male parts that don’t match up to any female cell phones or MP3s or Gameboys in our house. Uh-buh-bye.
◉ VHS tapes that are not labeled and are missing the outer covers, which probably bear the labels. I’d have to first figure out how to work our old VCR with the newer TV, and then watch all the tapes, only to find that they’re all old Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes. These are not welcome in my home. My son has been searching for the one in which I got so scared watching while I taped it for him, that I shut off the recorder and cut off the ending. This tape is a key piece of evidence in his case against me as Worst Mom of 1992.
◉ The outer covers to the above VHS tapes.
◉ Fifty-nine margarine container lids in two different sizes that I collected to make a giant rosary for my CCD class in 2000, but never got up the energy to spray paint them blue and silver and make the thing.
◉ Blue and silver spray paint for the above giant rosary project.
◉ A cement cast of a size 13 man’s foot. When I was an editor at Sun papers, I used to get press releases attached to some pretty crazy things. The foot was one of the perks of my job. I had it on my desk for a while, used it as a paperweight, and then in later years, it was relegated to the Junk Diane Can’t Throw Away section of the basement.
◉ Strapless bras. That ship has sailed. Crashed into the pier and sunk, too. Hundreds drowned.
The problem with all these things is this: I have a fear that as soon as I throw them out I’ll need them. Picture this scene:
Diane is sitting at the computer. Outside the window, the garbage truck pulls up, takes her trash and continues down the street, out of view. Cut to computer screen. Diane has just received an email from one of her kids’ teachers asking if anyone has any old electrical charger cords. There’s a drive to collect them and send them to South Africa or the Congo or Guatemala for poor kids who are in desperate need of them, used postage stamps and soda can pull tabs.
Shot of Diane’s widening eyes as she reads: “For every 16 chargers we collect, our class will receive a brand new iMac!”
Diane: Ack! (choking on coffee).
The email continues: “And if we can spray paint them blue and silver, we get a free Lexmark laser printer!”
Diane falls off chair.
Aaaaaaaand cut.