Work makes you free, or some other bullshit cliche would be an appropriate start to this blog - below, you can see the fruits of the normal 92er's neglect on things that really should be handled - I have a 15K race this weekend (that is 9.3 miles) and I still have to be physically and mentally prepared to embark upon the wonderful journey of cleaning out the accumulated crap in the garage - from the voice of experience - here is my latest and greatest top ten list for "garage and other assorted storage spaces":
TOP TEN THINGS TO DO WITH THE SHIT IN YOUR GARAGE:
1. Although a roll of Aluminum Foil 500 Yards long is sometimes a necessary item when strolling through COSTCO - it generally becomes an arts and craft object. Do not store this in your garage. Use this to cover your windows in the summer - the neighborhood association may not like it, but they are not the ones dealing with the spy satellites watching your every move.
2. Use an empty receptacle as an ashtray - those monogrammed lead crystal glasses that had a little bit of grapefruit juice in them left after a yard work day make a perfect addition to the pile of empty cigarette boxes on the old coffee table.
3. Buy several bins from Rubbermaid and stick a whole bunch of crap in them - that way when you have to clean the garage out, you get the Christmas like surprise of finding that electric blue sweater that was such a bargain at $129.95 - then use the sweater as a good way to start fires in the chiminera - cotton burns hot!
4. Make sure that you buy obscure sports items for your children, and then store them in your garage. For example, we have a pair of zebra painted stilts - occassionally, when I feel like giving myself a hernia, I break those things out and see how long it takes me to fall.
5. You must have an old table that doubles as an arts and crafts station for your children - that way, you have an excuse for not cleaning the garage - it's art by god, it's art - the glitter and glue on the floor are Cristo like in their appearance, and you can tell everyone that this is your commentary on the Y2K scare.
6. Have an arm chair in the garage - that way, when you get overwhelmed looking at all of the shit, you can sit down, and see if there are any cigarettes in one of those empty packages.
7. Use Goodwill or VFW as storage - you can actually take your really nasty crap to Goodwill, get a tax deduction, then buy it back from Goodwill and take another tax deduction - if it is really nasty crap that you are attached to, it will never sell, and you will get a great deal when you need to buy it back!
8. Make sure that you secretly throw away the crap that your nearest and dearest friends give to you that you are never going to use. Sometimes I look at some of the gifts I receive, and really wonder why they did not just buy me a 24 pack of really really nice lotion treated Charmin - that way it would get used.
9. Use those odd cleaning supplies to defumigate the garage - after enough of the chemicals rot through their containers, they tend to remove paint, skin, eyes, the lining of the lungs, and pet stains really easily - and the planet is much better off when you landfill the caustic formulas you create with the excess chemicals.
10. Tell your kids to go organize your tools - that way, you always have an excuse for your shit to be everywhere, and you have someone to blame for the extension cords laying in the floor, two hammers that have mysteriously become liquid nailed together, a box of screws rusted into a complete block of "screw", and four empty toolboxes strategically placed in the garage just in case you are actually ever able to find what you need.
That's my weekend, a 9.3 mile run, and then the disposal of all of the stuff that seemed to have been pretty fucking important - at least important enough to place in a plastic bin in my garage.
Take care everyone - and if you need anything you see in the pictures, or if it actually belonged to you and I failed to return it, there will be a pile of crap in front of my house on Sunday, feel free to drive by and claim it.
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