I come from a long line of packrats. My mother is currently one, and she inherited the gene/learned behavior (nature and nurture) from her mother. The theory is sound: my mothers side, being of northern Irish descent and packing up all of their stuff, first moved to Pennsylvania and then later to Kentucky and finally Ohio. They left nothing behind.
Somewhere in all the "packing up all owned/unowned stuff" and moving, a genetic mutation occurred in the Riley-Frye-Kilgore line (Mom's side), which made it difficult to throw anything away, ... regardless of its worth and/or use. This genetic mutation, when compounded by generations of learned behavior passed down through the family of "pack-ratting," led to a very messy garage in Delhi, Cincinnati (see below).
It should be noted that this inherited gene/behavior often dies out when the "inflicted" party mates with a person who does not carry the infliction. Unfortunately, this was not the case for me as I married a Jordanian named Jennifer, who also descends from a long line of packrats (Arab strand), the evidence of such I've witnessed in her mother's house. (No offense, Laila)
Behold my reality:
(Note the exercise ball lodged between two boxes ... that a person would quite literally need to climb over a slab door, a mountain bike, and a motorcycle to reach, ... and wonder no more about the status of my ripped abs)
The task for tomorrow is to do the impossible. I will once again attempt to break this cycle, to hold back the rising tide of junk flooding my reality.
The goal:
To be the biggest donor at the up-coming Free Garage Sale in Price Hill.
Wish me luck. If you don't hear from me in a while, I've died attempting to reach the peak of a worthy mountain.
4 comments:
Nice, that's why I bought a big house so I have plenty of space for my junk. Everything else I sell on eBay :)
Awesome post.
We drove down your street tonight. I couldn't remember which house was yours.
Maybe if you had your garage door open...
Melanie, we wish you would have!
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