Beaver Family
After 12 hours since we began packing, lifting, carrying, loading unloading, carrying and finally unpacking, I am now officially moved, now staying with my brother and mother in his rented apartment.
Around me are still a dozen unopened, unsorted boxed, full of items I insisted we never bring in the first place. But being a sentimental junky, my brother insisted on bringing every single thing over. Better to keep than to throw and regret later he says. He asked me to tone down on my 'throwing frenzy' that I had been on lately. My motto was 'If you havent seen or touched in in a year, and still dont miss it, then its junk.'
Ironically, its 130a.m., I'm working tomorrow, and it is I who am going through the junk sorting and clearing, and of course, throwing. On the other hand, my brother is sound asleep in his master room, full of boxes, enjoying his new queen size bed from our old place, which he was rather quick at claiming ownership. Meanwhile, his old single bed has been relegated to me in my tiny room, while my mother sleeps on the floor. I actually asked her to take the bed, but she insisted on the floor. She said she liked the coolness of the floor, and the bed made her feel hot. I'm not sure if its her maternal instincts, or she really is cool as a penguin. Whenever the rest of us are cold, she would say its just nice. When we say its just nice, she says its hot. When we say its hot, she behaves like she's sitting in an oven.
My guess is, its going to take the entire week to unpack the things and get really settled in. The problem is thisl; we have more things than we have places to put them, all courtesy of my brothers 'throw nothing, use everything' policy. He's been trying to convince me to agree to him buying some horrid steel cabinet from Ikea, which he fell in love with last Saturday. Firstly, I dont even know why he even feels the need to have my consent since he is the (self appointed) boss around the house, and he is paying for it. Secondly, I dont particularly like wire meshed cabinet, especially ones with a name like 'Omar'. (I never get why Ikea likes to give funny names to each and every one of their items.) It makes talking about furniture feel weird.
"If we had Omar around, the place would be so much neater, and we could stack the boxes."
"Even if you do have Omar, there is a limit to what you can put on it. Its steel mesh!"
The part I hate most is; my father left to go work down south, and it is up to us to take care of his stuff and 'preserve his legacy', faithfully taking care of his books from before we were born. My brother is somewhat like him; despite my insistence, he has refused to throw away his university notes. Thats 4 years worth of notes (or junk as I call it). To lead by example, I threw all but my final year notes. But he insisted that it was knowledge, and "You dont throw knowledge away like that' I countered and said "Knowledge not put to use is useless."
I'm not sure just what kind of blood runs through my families veins, but I just keep on having this picture of beavers storing and collecting everything to build their little dam. Picking every wood chip, every branch, every twig, because "They might just be useful some day."
Around me are still a dozen unopened, unsorted boxed, full of items I insisted we never bring in the first place. But being a sentimental junky, my brother insisted on bringing every single thing over. Better to keep than to throw and regret later he says. He asked me to tone down on my 'throwing frenzy' that I had been on lately. My motto was 'If you havent seen or touched in in a year, and still dont miss it, then its junk.'
Ironically, its 130a.m., I'm working tomorrow, and it is I who am going through the junk sorting and clearing, and of course, throwing. On the other hand, my brother is sound asleep in his master room, full of boxes, enjoying his new queen size bed from our old place, which he was rather quick at claiming ownership. Meanwhile, his old single bed has been relegated to me in my tiny room, while my mother sleeps on the floor. I actually asked her to take the bed, but she insisted on the floor. She said she liked the coolness of the floor, and the bed made her feel hot. I'm not sure if its her maternal instincts, or she really is cool as a penguin. Whenever the rest of us are cold, she would say its just nice. When we say its just nice, she says its hot. When we say its hot, she behaves like she's sitting in an oven.
My guess is, its going to take the entire week to unpack the things and get really settled in. The problem is thisl; we have more things than we have places to put them, all courtesy of my brothers 'throw nothing, use everything' policy. He's been trying to convince me to agree to him buying some horrid steel cabinet from Ikea, which he fell in love with last Saturday. Firstly, I dont even know why he even feels the need to have my consent since he is the (self appointed) boss around the house, and he is paying for it. Secondly, I dont particularly like wire meshed cabinet, especially ones with a name like 'Omar'. (I never get why Ikea likes to give funny names to each and every one of their items.) It makes talking about furniture feel weird.
"If we had Omar around, the place would be so much neater, and we could stack the boxes."
"Even if you do have Omar, there is a limit to what you can put on it. Its steel mesh!"
excerpt from actual conversation
Only by going to Ikea will you ever start talking about your house furniture with pet names. Omar the Cabinet, Janet the stool, and other assorted Swedish names which we all really have no idea how to pronounce.
Anyway, back to the topic; it truly is incredible just how much junk my father and brother are capable of collecting. I have thrown countless countless amounts of nameless miscellaneous hardware items; plug head here, half a door knob there, random screw, bolts, door hinges, half cut pipe, bottles of dried glue, tape and other utterly useless junk that they saw fit to keep. "It might come in useful some day/" was what they used to say all the time. Its really exasperating going throw.. I mean through ....my fathers hardware junk. Believe it or not, after going throw a grand total of 4 tool boxes, I uncovered 5 hammers, 3 drills, 3 saws, and about 8 (mostly damaged) screwdrivers. And that just to name a few. Unable to resist, while my brother was busy elsewhere, I threw as many things as I could. You cant miss what you never realise you had. How is it that we have so many of these junk well it goes something like this.
"Father/brother comes across half a door knob and thinks 'this may be handy. If I ever need to change a door knob, I wont have to buy one. So he stores it away, and soon forgets it. Then one day, he needs a door knob, and goes out to buy one. But as is the case, it comes in a set of 2, and he ends up buying extra. So in the end we end up with 1 and a half extra door knobs and a new one on the knob.
Anyway, back to the topic; it truly is incredible just how much junk my father and brother are capable of collecting. I have thrown countless countless amounts of nameless miscellaneous hardware items; plug head here, half a door knob there, random screw, bolts, door hinges, half cut pipe, bottles of dried glue, tape and other utterly useless junk that they saw fit to keep. "It might come in useful some day/" was what they used to say all the time. Its really exasperating going throw.. I mean through ....my fathers hardware junk. Believe it or not, after going throw a grand total of 4 tool boxes, I uncovered 5 hammers, 3 drills, 3 saws, and about 8 (mostly damaged) screwdrivers. And that just to name a few. Unable to resist, while my brother was busy elsewhere, I threw as many things as I could. You cant miss what you never realise you had. How is it that we have so many of these junk well it goes something like this.
"Father/brother comes across half a door knob and thinks 'this may be handy. If I ever need to change a door knob, I wont have to buy one. So he stores it away, and soon forgets it. Then one day, he needs a door knob, and goes out to buy one. But as is the case, it comes in a set of 2, and he ends up buying extra. So in the end we end up with 1 and a half extra door knobs and a new one on the knob.
The part I hate most is; my father left to go work down south, and it is up to us to take care of his stuff and 'preserve his legacy', faithfully taking care of his books from before we were born. My brother is somewhat like him; despite my insistence, he has refused to throw away his university notes. Thats 4 years worth of notes (or junk as I call it). To lead by example, I threw all but my final year notes. But he insisted that it was knowledge, and "You dont throw knowledge away like that' I countered and said "Knowledge not put to use is useless."
I'm not sure just what kind of blood runs through my families veins, but I just keep on having this picture of beavers storing and collecting everything to build their little dam. Picking every wood chip, every branch, every twig, because "They might just be useful some day."
posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 10:04 am
Comments: 0
