Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Cleaning out the crapmobile

I am embarrassed to say that, since leaving The Nightmare That Was My Last Job in March, I hadn't cleaned the car out until tonight. I had a shitload of stuff in my old office (I'd been there 6 years), and when everything went bad, I just threw everything in the car and left it there. Seriously, it was such a traumatic event, I didn't want to even have to look at anything that reminded me of that place, so I just pulled the little roll down cover over it and tried to forget.

I'd gone to IKEA only a couple of days before The Incident, and I'd bought bags and bags of colored sand to stick candles in. (I got a huge pile of these gorgeous hand-dipped little rainbow candles for pennies at the "after Hanukkah" sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I like to plant them in sand and let 'em go - an idea I got from a Body Shop gift set a few years ago.) My back was killing me on IKEA day, so I figured I'll just leave the sand in the car for a couple of days and pull them out a bit later. My mistake! Little did I know my world was going to get turned upside down and I'd be building sedimentary layers of crap in the back of my car.

Had I not cleaned it out tonight, I'm afraid a team from Discovery would be hoofing it over from Silver Spring to "unlock the secrets of the Escort!"

But, I offered to drive the Sasquatch to the airport tomorrow morning, and he reminded me that he was bringing his golf clubs. "And you may recall, they're big," was the pelted wondercreature's comment. I got the message. I think that may have been his subtle way of saying, "HEY, BONEHEAD! YOU OFFERED TO DRIVE ME, NOW CLEAN OUT YOUR DAMN CAR SO MY STUFF WILL ACTUALLY FIT IN IT!" I'm good with subtle. I get subtle. I would make room for the sticks. So, I waited tonight until the sun went down before I went out to haul the junk in to my apartment.

Good God, did I ever have a massive pile of crap out there. Where the hell did it all come from?!?

A short list:

1 leather coat
1 suit jacket
2 winter coats (one long for wearing over nice work clothes, one shorter one for keeping around shoulders and back because my office had a huge window and the heat didn't work)
1 blanket
1 pillow
1 pair oversized fuzzy slippers
1 each: black, brown, and blue comfy right foot shoes (blanket, pillow, slippers and shoes left over from my broken right leg recovery time and subsequent broken left foot recovery time)
2 bags of kitchen-y type stuff (tea, oatmeal, forks/knives/spoons, cups, bowls, Sweet 'n' Low (aka "Pink Death"), peanut butter, granola)
1 box of CDs (I wondered where my 2-disc set of James Bond themes had gone!)
1 box of "Eurasian souvenir crap" (gifts from my delegations)
1 bag from the grocery store that never made it in (thank god, it was just bottles of seltzer water!)
3 bags of really heavy decorative sand from IKEA (buried under the stuff from my office)
1 IKEA bag with a toilet seat in it

Now, it's this last item that distresses me. You'd think I'd be distressed just over the simple amount of crap I'd pulled out, but noooo!

You see, I didn't buy a toilet seat at IKEA. This means that, most likely, the person at the adjoining check-out (and I remember, she was a harried woman, screaming at her kids) popped her bag into my cart, and then I, eager to leave the IKEA feeding frenzy behind, didn't even notice that I packed a toilet seat I didn't buy into the back of my car. I guess I have a spare seat. The guest seat. Super!

I dragged it all in the building, toilet seat included, and I feel better. The major debris field has been cleared in the car, and there is space for the golf clubs. Amen. There's still stuff in the car, but it's the normal stuff one might find in a car, minus the canes, which I need when my stupid arthritis is bad.

Now I have to unpack all this car crap somewhere. So much for my cleared out entryway...

Anyone need an IKEA toilet seat?

Oh, and, for the record, the Sasquatch is actually a very kind and sweet gentleman. Any impression I may give that he's a pain in the ass is entirely for my own (and his, hopefully) amusement. He sometimes wonders what people think of him when they read my entries... Heh heh heh...

4 comments:

Sasquatch said...

I wasn't trying to be anything, actually. Subtle's not traditionally my forte, is it?

Merujo said...

No, that's true. Three words: white winter coat.

gonzomantis said...

Just think of the improved mileage you'll be getting now! A good thing with the current gas prices.

I suppose this means the lumbering one has made his semi-annual trek to the Birthplace of Fire to commune with his familial creatures. I wish him safe travel.

Merujo said...

Is Omaha really the Birthplace of Fire? Wow. I would have thought of it more as a "birthplace of the charcoal briquette" or "birthplace of the red sweatshirt".

And yes, my car is now getting spectacular mileage. Amazing what relieving it of about 100 lbs of crap can do!

Need a blue toilet seat?