One Man's Junk ...

… is another man’s treasure … or so the adage goes. Another MAN’s treasure. So what I want to know is how that other man’s junk became my WIFE’s treasure? How did it end up as THIS man’s junk filling his garage?

I mean, to put a couple of things in perspective, I do not currently actually own a garage. And yet the garage that I do not own is currently accumulating a variety of things that have been bought at ‘bargain prices’. They are residing in thais place where we live until at some point in the future, I do, once again own a garage (or at least get to occupy one) and they get to come along for the happy journey.

We already have a 40 foot container of stuff arriving from home in the near future and despite the fact that we managed to get rid of a significant volume of ‘junk’ that had been held for years prior to leaving (and what a cleansing experience that was) I was the one that had to go and put a value against the inventory of things that we’re bringing over in order to get it all cleared through customs.

And having gone through that list, I am exceedingly nervous about what I am going to discover managed to get packed into the container during the time that I was busy at work. So why on earth would I want to accumulate more and more stuff when I don’t even know what I’ve got and where it is going to go?

It could well be a curse of the size of the house that we’re going to move into … the fact that we have storage room, could, quite conceivably, lead someone into thinking that we need to fill it up. Or if not need, that we have room to store it, so there’s no real point in throwing it out!

Let’s not forget that around the end of this year, we’re supposed to move 3 provinces across to Ontario. How would it look if you have a full 40’ container of stuff arrive in September and then need an additional 20’ container to move again some 3 months later? Egad!

Garage sales are obviously a pox on my existence.

But in someone close to me’s words, “They stop soon, when summer’s over, no one does it anymore so its too cold. So I have to get this stuff now.” Which may indeed make a lot of sense; and even I have to admit that I can see there’s sense in buying used snowboards, ice skates and sleds in summer when people don’t want them, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bitch and whine about it! I hate accumulating crap … and even I’m guilty of doing it.

It’s my own fault though. I said that she could go. I told her that I couldn’t be bothered arguing about it so she could get whatever she wanted.

But the flipside to it is that when I’m told, “you do what you have to do, its your decision,” I’ve learnt that what it really means is, “yes, you can go and do that, but believe me, it’s the last thing that I want you to do and when you get back you’re going to hear about it!”

Perhaps I should have been more direct.

(And having managed to get the emotional response out of the way, I think it should be said that I dearly love my wife and the logical part of my brain truly does acknowledge just how much money we can save buying stuff this way. All the boy bits however want new toys!)