Cleaning out the garage
While working out my “house arrest,” I’ve assumed, or been assigned, a number of tasks I didn’t want to touch.
After six trips to the dump, another pile is ready to go. On the last trip I enjoyed watching a guy trying to back up a trailer. He didn’t know how.
The gals at the service window are funny: “Will that be for here or to go?”
Very little of this stuff was mine. There were a few Boy Scout relics: canteen, messkit, wooden tent pegs. The rest belonged to my father.
Having grown to adulthood during the Depression, he could not discard anything of pos- sible use.
If tires had any visible tread, he kept them. There were plastic buckets of hardware, old telephone handsets, old newspapers, everything “old.” Somewhere he found and kept a two-man, electric chain saw.
Joanna calls it the “Phillips Disease” and resists packing things away. We had things that had been in the family for nearly 200 years. They went to the Douglas County Museum.
Now we’re down to filling the shed again: It is coming from the garage.
It is full because of how two people are wired differently and store things. I try to leave things with associated things such as aviation “Cleco” and safety wire pliers. KW has no use for those but might try to use them for something else.
The Kansas Woman has her own tools.
In one drawer are nine slotted screw drivers of the same size and my fencing pliers. There are two other tool collections in the same room.
If a tool goes missing I have to replace it, then the original shows up somewhere in the garage.
We don’t have indoor pets but have two large pet carriers: To the shed.
There were two outdoor chairs and three large plastic tarps: To the shed.
Miscellaneous solvents, lubricants, containers, automotive stuff: To the shed. The garage needs cleaning out because it does and the KW wants a car to live inside.
We don’t buy new cars. Cars owned by rental companies are on a scheduled and preventive maintenance program and are very good buys.
The KW kept her last new car, an Acura Legend, longer than she should because it and “Little Miss Phillips” are from the same model year.
We keep thinking someone will come along who wants to restore the Acura. Maybe we should advertise.
I’m trying to be better than my family and my old self at letting things go, but now we’re down to Uncle Guy Phillips’ “false sides” if you know what those are.
Joanna calls it the “Phillips Disease” and resists packing things away. We had things that had been in the family for nearly 200 years.
Joe Phillips writes his “Dear me” columns for several small newspapers. He has many connections to Walker County, including his grandfather, former superintendent Waymond Morgan. He can be reached at joenphillips@hotmail.com.