After months of promising myself I’d finally get in the basement and clean, I did.
For a while, that is.
If your basement has become a catchall (and, let’s face it, whose isn’t?) there’s a lot of stuff down there. Worthless stuff. Big stuff. Stuff that needs to be moved.
Sensing this was a roadblock, friends built me shelves. Incredible shelves designed to hold all of my Rubbermaid bins. The ones that resided under the stairs (not unlike some troll) got first dibs on the space. Most returned to their original resting spots but, now, in an orderly fashion. The rest were scattered around the basement, just waiting to find a home.
With another bank of shelves, there really was no excuse.
So, I said I’d wait until vacation and plunge in. Armed with a roll of garbage bags, I started moving the easy bins – the light ones. Then I started sectioning off the basement. One area became the” throw zone.” Another, the “donate zone.” A third, the “eBay zone.” (And, if you know me, the eBay zone will quickly merge with the throw zone because I don’t have the energy to sell anything online, much less package and mail it.)
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The process worked quite well. I even did laundry while I was messing with the bins. As soon as I got one bag full of garbage, I toted it upstairs, checked my phone and had something to drink.
This went on for quite a while until I decided I needed to take a break. I found my grandmother’s scrapbook (through a process of “willing,” it wound up with me) and started looking at pictures.
In the world of “organization,” this is considered a slippery slope. One photo album can lead to a box of household junk. That can give way to old clothes (see how many of those you can still fit!) and, eventually the coveted shopping bag collection.
As I started gathering those bags and giving them a sense of order, an avalanche occurred in “holiday decorations” and a three-foot glass cylinder tipped over and broke, causing chaos in “stuffed animal land” and threatening the sanctity of “school supplies.”
Huge shards of glass were everywhere. Not willing to use one of the shopping bags, I went upstairs for more garbage bags to gather the pieces. One by one, I picked up the remnants of the candleholder. What I didn’t realize was that they also had the ability to poke out of plastic. Before I knew it, my leg, my elbow and my wrist were bleeding.
Afraid to get blood on the carpet (thus opening yet another can of cleaning whoop-ass), I searched in the basement for something to hold on each of the wounds. Torn sheets? Ratty towels? What?
I decided to sacrifice a T-shirt that didn’t fit but was still in good condition. Quickly, the white turned red and I knew I was in a big ol’ mess of something. (I could see the headline: “Hoarder killed by stuff.”)
I made it upstairs, searched through “bandage land” and could only find “extra-long” ones (who buys extra-long bandages?). Wrapping myself like a mummy, I was able to keep the bleeding down enough to go back into the belly of the beast and sweep up the rest of the glass. When I deposited the garbage bag in the receptacle, one of those shards scraped me on my shin.
I saw that as a sign: No more cleaning.
In the middle of the night, a storm knocked over the trash receptacle, spilling the contents on the driveway. I braved the rain, pushed the bags back and realized this was much greater than all of us.
Junk, I reasoned, has a will to live, no matter how hard we try to kill it. Dust bunnies form a cocoon so we can’t arbitrarily toss a potential treasure. Lost socks create a “Shawshank”-like tunnel where they can lead quiet lives amid empty boxes and unused luggage.
So, the next time you feel you’ve got to tackle that garage, that kitchen drawer or that bedroom closet, be prepared for a big fight.
No matter how much you think you’re doing the right thing, worthless knickknacks will cut you.
