My mom and I are sitting in her house, which used to be her mother’s house. We are reminiscing and both thought of this blog post I wrote years ago. Enjoy!
May 6, 2003 – The Road to Hell is Paved with Cardboard Boxes
I bet you are wondering just what it in all of those cardboard boxes that I moved for my grandfather on Saturday afternoon…
Let me make a partial list of what I saw:
* Toilet paper. Case upon case of toilet paper. Nobody needs that much toilet paper!
* Canned foods of every kind.
* Used paper towels that had been dried flat, waiting to be re-used. For what, I don’t know.
* Cereal. Box after box of cereal. No, he doesn’t eat cereal. Neither does grandma.
* Spark plugs and exhaust system clamps.
* A ream of paper from a company that went out of business decades ago.
* One box marked “sex” that apparently contained old magazines. I didn’t open this one.
* Pairs of socks that he can’t wear anymore because (1) he only has one foot and (2) he can’t wear anything too binding for fear of cutting off circulation to his remaining foot. I should mention that his remaining leg was red up to mid-shin, which is not a good sign for someone with circulation problems.
* Old stuffed animals.
* A single crutch that he got out of someone else’s garbage.
* Old cassette tapes and old record albums.
* A dozen bottles of Afta aftershave lotion.
* More candy than any diabetic should be eating.
He kept thinking of things that he wanted moved on our next visit, “when there are five or six of you here,” he said. He has the garage attic crammed full of stuff too. He wants us to go up there and start bringing it all down. My mother spent one very hot summer day up there. Decades old dust and dirt, she said she coughed up black stuff for a week. Not good for a borderline asthmatic like her. Or like my husband. Mom says that there is no way she is ever going up there again.
When my mom and I were doing what Grandpa asked, she was trying to protect me from doing too much, and I was trying to protect her from doing too much or from lifting anything heavy. He uses our desire to protect each other against us, just to get us to work harder. That’s just wrong. You don’t do that to your family.
As you probably guessed, I get my packrat tendencies from Grandpa.
After this weekend – I think it is safe to say that I am cured.
I guess that is one good thing to come out of a very difficult situation.
