Unfocused Content

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must decide down which path he will travel. A time that does not tolerate hesitation, but calls for action. That time for me was tonight. The decision was to end the misery that has been creeping up my spine, slowly forcing its icy presence upon my being. I could no longer suffer the chill of constant defeat, the embarrassment of inaction. I had to act. And I did.

“And I did” is not a sentence, technically. But we’re going to let it slide for now because my hands are still thawing from the above mentioned chill and icy defeat, etc. (Is “yada yada yada” officially over?) You may have heard that it snowed in Denver. ‘Twas beautiful, to say the least, but as a home owner, I was woefully unprepared for a storm of this magnitude.

The good news is that I’ll have plenty to write about in the spring - digging up my sprinkler system, replacing trees and bushes, and finding the remains of the the previous summer’s back yard activities. But, that will have to wait. For now I am here to tell you all about my evening’s adventures in garage maintenance.

You see, dear friends, during the course of any given summer, the contents of our garage expand to cover an area roughly the size of Peru. As my garage is slightly smaller than Peru, or even Lima, the mass of sporting gear, bicycle parts and extra socks spills over into the living room, the kids rooms, and sometimes even the neighbor’s front lawn. We have people to manage most of those areas (if you count the neighbors who do clean up after us, albeit unhappily so), but we have no people to manage the garage.

The garage is my domain.

Several weeks ago, as I turned my face toward the mountains and took in the first cool winds of Autumn, I sensed it was time to make a space in the garage for my wife’s car. I feel it is a husbands duty, first and foremost, to guard against the women folk venturing out to a cold car in the morning. But, what with the limited space, and the ever-growing mound of crap, I made room enough for just one car. No big deal. I like the cool Fall mornings. I drive to work with the windows down anyway (pretending I’m on a motorcycle) so for me, it is a pleasure to store my vehicle in the driveway.

Until it snows.

When snow falls, it does it haphazardly so. If the world were more equitable a place, snow would only fall on distant mountains and roof-tops. perhaps upon the quiet grassy areas of suburbia. That is not the case. Additionally, I am not a rise-and-shine sort of guy. Keep me up all night, and I can be your most loyal of friend. Wake me at 6:00 am and you’d better be prepared for a scuffle. Given my propensity for tardiness, the last thing I need in the morning is a snow covered vehicle.

That is what I awoke to this morning, much to my surprise and dismay.

So, this evening, I took it upon myself to make room where room could not be made. I decided to clean out the garage which, in this case, means that I shoved paint buckets, extra lawn chairs, an unopened bag of tulip bulbs, three bicycles, a car jack, a table saw, and two dishwashers up against any available wall, so as to clear a spot almost big enough for my hippo-like minivan.

The real trick was finding a spot for the dishwashers. If you are wondering why we have two dishwashers in our garage, then you missed my post about my wife’s obsession with freecycle, and how she can’t seem to throw anything away that someone might need someday. Our dishwasher broke, and the parts we needed were $70. As luck would have it, that same week one of our neighbors replaced their perfectly good dishwasher with an upgraded model, and I took their old one for parts. But, my wife could not stand to see a perfectly good dishwasher be destroyed when there are people in the world without dishwashers. So, she went to freecycle and found a second dishwasher that was not in working condition, but which had the parts we needed. For free. That was June. Since that time, neither of us has been able to determine which is which, and no one has come knocking on our door asking for a dishwasher, so they both remain in the garage.

Luckily, they are light. They are not small, but they do stack well, and I was able to balance them on top of the 11 bags of concrete that our friends gave us when they moved to Seattle two years ago. I’m not sure why those are still in the garage either.

I see my time is up. Both cars are in the garage, and that is really all that matters. As long as my bike remains precariously balanced on the small hook in the ceiling, and does not come crashing down upon my wife’s car, all will be fine until Spring.

(*I borrowed the pic of the garage. That would never post that if it were my garage.) 

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