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Its not going to be pretty
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I am puzzled by Hubs more often than not these days. I mean, here’s a guy who can’t let go of nuts and bolts he “inherited” from his grandpa’s garage, and yet when he scratches his head about missing $400 that he thought he deposited in the bank ... and then shrugs it off?

What the...?

That was a couple of years ago, mind you, but he still has moments like that.

I know he normally doesn’t take things like that lightly, but he was totally oblivious to where that money had gone.

Never mind the fact that he opened a book one day and a wad of cash fell out.

“Oh. I’d forgotten about this,” he said absentmindedly.

As he drifted out to the garage, I immediately began pulling all the books off the shelves.

Needless to say, finding a treasure trove was not in my stars that day.

He came home the other day just ranting about the number of homes he goes into — as a gas service technician — that are filled to the brim with “stuff.”

“Deathtraps!” is what he claims.

I had to sorta give him that “yeah ... right ...” look, as you all know too well the saga of his hoarding tendencies.

“The worst of it is having to clean out the stuff where all the animal dander has gathered ... it’s awful!”

I shudder to think.

He was stomping around, complaining about a customer who was in her 40s, livin’ with her momma, he barely had room to get around for all their shizz in the way and she wheezed, “I need my heater on because I can barely breathe. There must be a lot of pollen in the air because my allergies are so bad...”

He said, “It was all I could do to not jump down her throat about the gawd-awful mess in her house .... All the clutter, all the dust, all the cats  ... man! ... the cats...! There was cat hair all over that place! I had to go down into this crawl space to light the furnace, which I really didn’t want to do ’cause I thought everything might catch fire, but I had to pull out wads of cat fur before I finally got to the heater. I don’t even know where the mother was! I could hear her, but I couldn’t see her.”

“Maybe she was under the several layers of blankets and pillows on the sofa.”

“Probably! She could’ve been under a mound of newspaper for all of that. I expected her to come out of a back bedroom looking like Cousin It, ’cause the daughter was a close enough cousin. I’m tellin’ you, I do not get paid enough to deal with this kinda mess.”

Now, having said all of this, it makes me wonder if he really sees the issue at hand in our own little crawl space — the garage.

I give him credit that he’s pared it down a bit, but I have to constantly remind him that we have two — not one — but two, storage units, also filled to the brim with our stuff.

Those storage units are out of sight out of mind as far as he is concerned, but I have insisted that we need to get them cleaned out and put that money to better use. Why pay to have it stored when it’s clear we don’t need it because we don’t miss it?

“But ... but ... but I need my tools.”

“Mmmhmm. Tools. I thought you brought all your tools when we moved.”

“I’ve got some things that I didn’t bring ... like my table saw.”

Right.

But he bought a table saw from a neighbor not too long ago, and all he got was the “table top.” No legs, no saw.

“And what exactly can you do with that since it has no legs and no saw? I thought those were to be included in the sale.”

Hmmm? tap tap tap went my foot.

And then I found, in his not-so-secret-anymore hiding place, a bucket of screws.

“Where did these come from ... and why???” I asked myself.

I give up.

For now.

I know that his own hoarding issues are going to take some time.

But the minute he starts looking like Cousin It, that will BE it.

Eeeebeeeedeeebeeeedaaadaaaa....