I spent the day pulling shit out of drawers in my garage. I didn’t necessarily want to, but the wind was howling today, and my internet was intermittent at best. Unlike most of the rest of the city, the power stayed on all day at my house, so that was nice. Since I wasn’t going to get any work done, I figured it was a good day to spend in the garage.

It’s An Illness

I had to make a lot of decisions today. Some of them were tough, like whether I should get rid of my router. I hate routers. They’re noisy, and I hate the way they fling sawdust all over me. I want to make a bunch of dovetailed drawers, though, so should I keep it?

Other decisions were very easy. There was a shocking amount of shit stashed away in my garage, and I don’t know what a lot of it is or what it’s for. I guess my logic was that when the time came that I needed it, I would spontaneously know what it was for. That’s insane!

Hoarding is definitely an illness. The whole time I was out there cleaning, I was thinking about what I might need every little nut, bolt, and tool for in the future. It’s been 46 years already, and I haven’t needed any of it so far, but its time is coming! I started to stress about getting rid of something only to need it later. Like, I have an 18″ long 3/4″ drive breaker bar out there and exactly one socket for it. It’s 1 5/16″. When the hell am I ever going to need to break loose a 1 5/16″ bolt? And, in the highly unlikely scenario that I do, I also have a 24″ 1/2″ drive breaker bar with a 1/2″ to 3/4″ adapter. So, I’m covered.

What Now?

So, now there’s more room in my drawers, but instead of being discreetly stashed away out of sight, the detritus of my garage is piled in the middle of my work table. What do I do with it now? Throw it in the trash? Drag it out to the curb? Sell it? Where? eBay? Craigslist? Facebook? Garage Sale? It’s all so time-consuming, and in the meantime, I have to find a new place to store it all.

The whole point of going through everything and culling the excess was to make room in the garage, but now there is less room, and I have to spend more time dealing with all of this shit. I suppose I should be grateful that this is currently my biggest problem. Folks in Pacific Palisades have real problems right now. Of course, if I lived there, this problem might have been solved for me last night.