Notes from Maine - 2022/09/18
I was at Dad’s yesterday, throwing away shoes. These weren’t shoes that I would donate—they were shoes that already had been donated, used, discarded, and then my father found them at the dump. Dad was born in 1936, and somehow the Great Depression really informed his later life. Earlier this summer, Mom catalogued and disposed of maybe 100 belts. A few dated back to before they were married (in 1963). His house wasn’t stacked to the rafters with newspapers or anything. His hoarding condition was mild and focused.
There are still four or five mailboxes in his garage. I get it—the snowplow can demolish a mailbox pretty quickly. How many spare mailboxes do you need though? On Sunday, after going to the dump, Dad used to have a conference call with his childhood friends. These were two brothers that Dad used to babysit in Greenland. They always wanted a “dump report,” where Dad would describe his Sunday “dump scores.” Perhaps that’s why he collected these things—he just wanted something to talk about on the phone call.
My theory is that he saw a mailbox at the dump and wasn’t sure if it was better than the one he had already picked up. So, taking it home, he put the “new” mailbox with the old one and never bothered to get rid of the first. The following week, the same thing happened. It made sense to grab one, in case it’s better than the reserve he already had. He was just missing the second step of the process where he compared and then shed the lesser mailbox.
Slowly, we’re returning all these treasures to their native habitat—the dump.
Actually, after sorting, a lot of items are going to Goodwill. I dropped off around a hundred hardcover books yesterday. More will be going this week. I was really happy to come home yesterday. That house drains me when I think about what still needs to be done. Soon, the careful deliberation will give way to a big dumpster and my brother and I will fill it with the unsalvageable.
Speaking of getting rid of stuff, I managed to sell my SUV last week. There was a lot of interest in it (I priced it low because of the encrusted dog drool and fur that I was unable to remove). The first person who visited paid in cash and came back in an hour to drive it away. There was a story behind the purchase, I’m sure. The name he gave me for the sales receipt didn’t quite match the caller ID. He didn’t want to test drive it. I called my brother while I was printing out the sales receipt and asked his opinion. By the way, if you need an opinion on almost any subject, my brother will give you one.
My brother said, “You’re just a person selling a used vehicle in your driveway—you’re not the sales receipt police. Don’t think about it too much.”
It was a solid point. I didn’t commit any fraud and I have no proof except for a weird inkling that the purchaser did either. Besides, I didn’t get murdered. That was my big concern. It was nice to get rid of that vehicle. I wasn’t prepared for how much of a relief it was. A part of my brain was always concerned for that vehicle, and I was worried that inertia (laziness) was going to lead to it rotting in my driveway for six months. The insurance had just expired and the inspection was due this month. It was the perfect time to help it move along to the next person.
Alice in Chains had a song (Put You Down) where Layne sings, “Reduction is addictive too.”
There are plenty of things around here that I’m excited to get rid of now. I don’t have any spare mailboxes, but I do have a couple of 7~10 horsepower motors that I repaired and kept in reserve for the go karts. And by “a couple,” I mean I have at least five. I mean, I have five fixed, ready to go engines and probably one or two that are in pieces. And, by “one or two,” I’m sure I have more than that. I got really into fixing small engines a few years ago. I would go by the dump, find an abused snowblower or lawnmower, take the engine off, fix it and then… I mean, maybe it was better than the one I already had. I suppose that when I was done, I should have taken the worse one back to the dump, but it was a perfectly good engine at that point. Why would I take it back to the dump?
Who’s going to get stuck cleaning out this place?
