Tools

In the previous post I talked of Matthew's birthday, and the gift I purchased for him. Remember? It was a Black and Decker tool set for children ages 3 and up.

Of course, I had to get the best -- Black and Decker -- Alan's favorite tools are B&D's. I'm not saying that Alan uses them much any more. He did tighten up the screws in the dining room chairs -- they were getting wobbly.

Why can't they make furniture anymore that holds together? I have a beautiful table and chair set, but the chairs have been a problem from day one -- the screws that hold the chair together seem to want to come lose and need tightening at regular intervals. I have always done that chore myself, but Alan sat in a chair that almost broke under his weight, and I was behind in my screw tightening duties, so he took care of it. Wasn't that nice?

We have a garage full of tools that will not be used ever again. We have taking up space -- and you will be able to tell that this is a sore point with me, because if you don't use something in two years, you should get rid of it, and it's been at least 20 years since Alan's radial arm saw has been used. It's a big hulking thing that sits on a table and takes a lot of space in the garage.

We don't put cars in our garage -- we can't, there's no room. Too many tools. Too many boxes not yet opened after seven years -- get rid of them, if you haven't needed the stuff in those boxes for seven years, you don't need that stuff. Four old, useless computers and screens. What are we saving them for? I'm wondering if Alan has a plan to melt them down and somehow convert them to car fuel and save us a couple of gallons worth of gas. I don't know. Why are we keeping four broken chairs, and six of those plastic porch chairs that I won't have on my porch now. We could give those to the kids, if they wanted them, or just throw them away.

Our garage is the laughing stock of the community and of our children and of anyone who has seen it. Alan loves it. It's so full of junk, useless junk to me, but if he finds that one rusted bolt per year in one of the gazillion jars of nuts and bolts he has down there, it's worth the save.

See, that's where we differ -- Alan and I -- I would just go out to Lowe's and save all that time trying to find that one rusted bolt, pay the $2 or whatever it costs and be on with my project.

Don't misunderstand -- Alan has issues with my "savings". I have scrapbook stuff coming out of every inch of space in the guest bedroom. But I got rid of ALL the education documents I had been saving from the early 90s, and there were at least 20 boxes of those documents to be gone through and purged and destroyed. I did that.

What other collections to I have that bug Alan. He recently complained that I left my shoes all over the house. Well, I had one pair by the elevator -- I hate to wear shoes, they hurt my feet. And I had my pair of slippers out of the closet in the bedroom. That's it.

Still I feel like my house is a mess all the time. My room, my office, is especially nasty. I clean it up, and then I have three birthdays coming up and the presents are scattered all over the room along with several types of wrapping paper, and the room is a mess again. I mail three packages, and four more come in and I have the boxes sitting around the room.

I'm waiting for Alan to finish the oak, antique file cabinet for me so I can get my scrapbook papers put into one place, instead of all over the house. I have them (the papers) organized, I just need to get them into something other than ugly plastic folders.

So, in this BLOG, I've gone from TOOLS to TRASH. Not a bad jump. I think it's time I went down into the garage -- a place I avoid like my friend avoids pain -- and put sticky notes on all the things that can be pitched for underuse. That's a plan.