Stuff in the Garage

Hi Everyone!  I’m beach camping and I’d like to introduce guest blogger, Jerry Huber.  Enjoy.

2 or 3 times a year, I make an obligatory, yet totally futile attempt to clean out my garage.  I always start out determined to get the place organized but the job seems to overwhelm me and I just end up moving stuff from one place to another.  It’s not that the garage is too small.  It’s a 3 car garage and it’s never actually had a car parked in it.  The place is bigger then a condo we use to lived in.  No… the problem is that I have a lot of stuff.

The logical, right side of my brain knows that I don’t really need half the things stored in the garage.  But when it comes time to throw something away or drop off a couple of boxes at the Goodwill, I seem to find a reason not to.

My wife is a fanatic when it comes to the holidays.  She has boxes of decorations for every holiday celebrated in North America.  These seasonal knick- knacks usually spend 2 weeks on display in the house and the other 50 weeks stored in the garage.  We have 8 boxes of Christmas decorations… 9 if you include the artificial tree we bought at Costco last year.  The box for that thing is the size of a refrigerator.  Any time I’ve even suggested that we get rid of some Christmas decorations my family acts like I am the Grinch and I am committing a personal affront to the baby Jesus.

Halloween is another big holiday at my house.  In addition to several boxes of Halloween decoration, I have 6 boxes of costumes.  Six boxes of Halloween costumes may seem unnecessary, but you’d be amazed how often my family and friends will call me when they need to dress up as a dinosaur, a butterfly or a prostitute.

Scattered throughout my garage, I have a set of tiki torches, 2 grass skirts, a grocery bag full of plastic leis, 3 strings of lights shaped like palm trees, an inflatable Polynesian totem pole and a set of limbo poles.  There’s a certain sense of pride that comes from knowing that at a moments notice I can throw together a very respectable backyard luau.

There seems to be a lot of sports equipment in my garage.  Baseball, softball, soccer, basketball, volleyball, horseshoes, tennis, bowling, skateboarding… if it’s shown on ESPN, I’ve probably got the equipment for it.  I’m not sure yet which sports my kids are going to excel at, but I would hate for them to miss the opportunity to be a pro athlete and sign a lucrative endorsement deal with Nike or Gatorade just because I threw away an old baseball mitt.

We live in Southern California and we spend a fair amount of time at the beach.  So naturally, in the garage I have 3 boogie boards, 10 folding chairs, 2 umbrellas, 5 cooler chests, 3 beach blankets and a vast assortment of beach toys.  Before I got married, packing for the beach meant grabbing a dirty towel and picking up a six- pack at 7- Eleven.  Not any more.  I also have 2 surfboards, which is kind of odd since nobody in the family has surfed since my oldest daughter outgrew her “surfer- girl” phase 6 years ago.

There’s 26 cans of paint sitting on a shelf in my garage… 9 of them are subtly different shades of white.  I’m pretty sure 4 or 5 of them were left behind by the previous owner of my house.  I’ll probably never use any of it… but at $30 a gallon, throwing it out would be like pouring French Champagne down the toilet.

I have 2 space heaters just in case it ever drops below 40 degrees here in San Diego.  It could happen, you never know.

Each of my kids has a large box cram- packed with homework, tests, book reports and art projects dating back to preschool.  My wife is firmly convinced that not saving the kids school work would somehow make us horrible parents and that our lack of support will be a reoccurring topic when our kids end up in therapy.

I have a lot of tools… or at least that’s what my wife says.  She may be right.  For me, walking through the tool department of Home Depot is only slightly less arousing then browsing at the F-Street Bookstore.  At last count, I had 27 screwdrivers, 11 pairs of pliers, 9 saws, 6 hammers, 8 measuring tapes, 3 crow bars, 4 levels and 5 crescent wrenches.  There’s a wrench in my toolbox that I’ve never used.  I’m not entirely sure what it’s for but I’m sure I’ll need it someday.  I won’t even get into power tools.  I could probably justify this assortment of tools if I worked in construction but I spend most of my time sitting in front of a computer monitor.  If I’m ever invited to an Amish barn- raising, I’ll be ready.

I have 5 ladders and a fear of heights.  I think surrounding myself with ladders is my way of confronting my acrophobia.

That’s just a small sampling of the things in the garage, but you get the general idea.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to shed my need to hang onto stuff… maybe not.  But right now I wish I had invested my money in Rubbermaid plastic storage boxes rather then General Motor stocks.

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