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If I could find the coffee pot
or the wineby
Peary Perry | |
Stick
a fork in me…I’m done. I can’t think of one place on my body that doesn’t hurt.
Even my hair (what’s left of it) is in pain. I’d have to feel better to die.
In
case you forgot, we have spent the last week moving from one house to another
one. If you get the chance to do this, take my advice and don’t. Save yourself
some grief. Stay in one place for as long as you can. Buy or rent a cave and make
a conscience decision not to ever move for any reason. Trust me on this.
Our main problem is that we are moving into a house that is about 1300 square
feet smaller than where we have been for the past eleven years. Our stuff just
won’t fit. That is it won’t fit in any convenient sense of the word. Our house
looks like a furniture store. Couches and chairs stacked up in bedrooms. Boxes
against the wall, pictures wrapped and laying on the floor. I think we could put
a sign in the yard and sell most of this stuff without any trouble at all. Just
take cash, no credit cards accepted.
We have too many books. I’ll never
be able to read them all, but I hate to throw them away. War and Peace stares
back at me in the morning when I am drinking coffee and reading the paper. I know
one day I’ll get back into it again. Not today, I’m tired.
Throw away those
magazines. I don’t know why I buy magazines with recipes; I can’t ever go back
and remember which ones had the good recipe in the first place. Those financial
investment and retirement guides? Chunk those, in view of today’s economy anything
written longer than one week ago is old and useless. Give them to my doctor. He
still has stuff in his lobby about how we can work ourselves out of the depression,
the one in 1929.
No sense in keeping those diet and exercise books. They
just make my eyes hurt. Throw them in the trash as well. I cleaned out the attic
and the garage. Gave all of the yard stuff to the yard guys. Shovels, rakes, hoes,
they can use all of them. I can’t remember the last time I dug a hole. We’re sitting
on solid rock; you can’t dig holes in this part of the country. Your pet dies;
you need dynamite to bury him not a shovel. Weed eaters and leaf blowers, what
do I need with them? The yard guys do that stuff. I found a case of motor oil.
Gave it away along with the transmission fluid and the antifreeze. I haven’t changed
oil in about fifteen years. I don’t plan on starting now. Four gas cans. For what?
I don’t even own a lawnmower any longer. Some kind of an exercise lounger I could
never figure out how to use. One of the yard guys grabbed it in a hurry. He said
his wife wanted one. I hope he’ll be happy. I hope she is happy he brought it
home for her.
I have clothes that I could only wear after I have been
dead for a year. Those go out as well. Those lovely polyester shirts from the
disco days probably won’t be coming back into style anytime soon. Out they go.
I have clothes from my fat period. Those depress me and are going out also. Goodwill
is going to think these are coming from separate families. I don’t need to explain.
Just run in and drop the stuff off. No questions asked. Remind myself to wear
sunglasses. I don’t need a receipt.
Our youngest son was over last night
and was looking over some of the stuff we are throwing away. I explained that
we should have done this before we moved, but we didn’t have time. The new people
wanted to move in on the day we closed. In this economy we were thrilled to sell
the house. We could move everything in five hours if necessary. Our son is getting
married in August and I suggested that he look into inflatable furniture. Just
blow it up when you get somewhere and let the air out when you leave.
He didn’t know if they made stuff like this or not, but I think it’s a great idea.
I could sure be happy with a blow up couch about now. We have one that is too
big for the doors so we will have to have one of the windows removed in order
to get it into the living room. Inflatables are the wave of the future. You could
put your whole house in the trunk of your car. My kind of deal.
Now, if
I could find the coffee pot or the wine. Makes no difference to me at this point.
©
Peary Perry
Letters From North America March
4, 2009 column
Syndicated weekly in 80 newspapers
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
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