May 1, 2015
Dear Everyone:
A few weeks ago, I managed to get rid of a couple of old
television sets
that were taking up space in my second bedroom.
Also known as “the Back Bedroom” as it takes a few more steps to
reach than the master bedroom.
Also known as the library, the home office, the catchall room,
or, as “Jeannie” calls her garage, just “the really big closet”.
One TV set was sitting on the floor underneath a folding table in front
of the window. I had put
that table in front of the window temporarily when I first moved in.
It’s been temporary for over six years now.
And, being a table, it had acquired many objects, placed upon it
temporarily. Nothing
attracts objects, temporarily, quite like a handy horizontal surface.
You have something in your hand.
You need to use that hand for something else.
You put the object down, temporarily, while you do the something
else. And six years later,
unless you found a reason to move the object again, it’s still right
where you put it, however temporarily.
Unless, of course, someone else moved it for you.
This is less likely to happen if you live alone.
It seems to be a Law of Nature that things temporarily placed on a handy
horizontal surface tend to develop into piles as more things are placed
on top of them. Temporarily.
Example: You get home from
work, with the day’s mail in your hand.
You put the mail down on a handy horizontal surface, such as the
dining table. You fully
intend to deal with the mail within a short period of time.
But then things happen.
The phone rings. The
pet and/or Significant Other wants to be fed.
It’s time for bed.
It’s time to get up and go to work again.
The next day, you get home from work, again, with the day’s mail in your
hand, again; and you put today’s mail down on top of yesterday’s mail,
again. Temporarily, of
course. And, before you know
it, the dining table is covered in old mail.
And empty shopping bags.
And the wrapping paper and ribbon from last
Christmas.
Is it May again already?
So the table in the Back Bedroom had piles of stuff on it, blocking
access to the window.
The second TV set was sitting on a small table, intended by the
manufacturer to be a used as a bedside table.
If I moved the little table, I could fit another one of those
plastic shelving units, of which I already had three, in its place.
So I went to the Large Office Supply Warehouse Store where I had
previously purchased the three units that I already had.
They cost about $30 each.
Alas, the Large Office Supply Warehouse Store did not have any
more of the plastic shelving units.
In fact, they had a great many metal filing cabinets of various
sizes and models, but very few shelves.
Instead, I went to the Other Large Office Supply Warehouse Store.
They, too, had a lot of filing cabinets, but not a lot of
shelves. I’m not really sure
why metal filing cabinets are suddenly in fashion.
Perhaps someone has discovered that the
Paperless Office,
predicted when computers came into easy use, never really happened.
I had one more option. I
could order the exact same plastic shelving unit online, for about $30,
and have it shipped to the local Large Office Supply Warehouse Store and
pick it up there. After all,
a few days more or less would make little difference.
So I tried that, and found the shelving unit was Out Of Stock.
And a week later, no longer even listed.
Sigh.
In the meantime, I needed some new light bulbs.
While at the Big Hardware Supply Warehouse Store, I decided to
look for shelving units. A
man wearing an orange apron showed me a number of metal shelves,
intended for a really big workshop, or garage.
When I said it was looking for something “not so heavy”, he
quickly found some plastic shelving units.
Ones that offered more than double the storage capacity at only
$10 more than the one I had been looking for.
He even loaded it into the cart for me.
And it was light enough that I could wrestle it out of the cart
and into the back seat of the car all by myself.
Once I got it home, I told myself, firmly, “You don’t have to do
it all in one day.”
So I waited until the next morning to clear some things away from the
wall in the Back Bedroom.
Assembling the whole shelving unit (36” x 18” x 72”) took all of about
fifteen minutes. Looking at
it another way, with five shelves, it took about three minutes per
shelf.
I spent the rest of that day, and most of the next day, organizing,
filing, and rearranging the Back Bedroom, all the while reminding
myself, “You don’t have to do it all in one day.”
Nor am I finished, of course.
There’s still lots of stuff on the bookcases that are only there
because they had no place else to go.
In the meantime, the folding table, temporarily blocking access to the
window for six years, is now folded up and leaning against the wall
underneath said window.
So far, I have succeeded in resisting the temptation to run back to the
Big Hardware Supply Warehouse Store for yet another shelving unit.
After all, the Back Bedroom, like Life itself, is a Work in
Progress.
Love, as always,
Pete
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