7.7.2003: Boxing Day Revisited
I mentioned in a previous rant that we'd moved last February. We tried to get out from the 'living out of boxes' stage ASAP. But boxes that made it to the basement were easier to ignore unless we needed something from them (much like some people...)
To be fair, after we got the main boxes out of our way, we haven't just been sitting around idle. Roughly two-thirds of the flooring is different from how we found it, and the bathroom is nearly unrecognizable. Add to that the new adventures in lawn care and we've been justifiably busy.
Flashback to January: We were packing, asking for boxes, packing, etc. Certain areas, especially those under my control, kept getting put off on the notion that I needed to go through the stuff and weed out the garbage before packing (I'm a pack-rat, the idea of just arbitrarily chucking things makes me cringe.) And other areas were still in day-to-day use. Boxes accumulated until there wasn't room to stack any more.
February came and we started hauling to the new house. Our friends came one Saturday morning and made fairly short work of what we had thought were a lot of boxes. "Come on, let's get the rest of this stuff" they cried, and some of the unsorted garbage got packed up with the good.
Back to the present: Any boxes not removed from the basement by April have pretty much sat untouched. There was some minor water in the basement (another new experience for us) but nothing beyond the boxes themselves seems to have been damaged.
Now I must go through the boxes, including a few packed at the 'last minute' which contain genuine junk. I'm not looking forward to it.
The situation is now urgent due to the imminent arriaval of my wife's family this coming weekend. Both my wife's parents are retired and like to have 'something to do' when they come. My wife has already warned me that anything I clean is likely to be re-cleaned no matter how good a job I do. I've accepted my fate in that department, and I won't knock myself out scrubbing the kitchen, etc.
But I'm worried about the boxes. My wife's family lived the military life most of their lives. If you don't see the connection yet, you don't know any career military... frequent transfers & moves quickly kill off any pack-rat tendencies the military person may have, and 'sentimental value' doesn't count for as much as it used to. I'm still trying to cure my wife of the delusion that "if we haven't used it in a year we don't need it." Ha!
And they'll be there all day while I'm at work...
She wants the basement cleared of boxes because she wants it to 'look good' when they get here. I want the boxes emptied and their contents safely stored elsewhere to create the illusion they're in use (for their own protection.) Two different motives, same goal.
When it comes to housework the one thing no book of household management can ever tell you is how to begin. Or maybe I mean why. --Katharine Whitehorn,
"Nought for Homework," Roundabout, 1962
