The River Green

In about 80 hours or so, our house will be filled with guests for Thanksgiving. We are expecting 8 people and a 9th for dessert. Among the rituals that are normally fulfilled during these hours is the annual clean for company exercise. While our house is far from a pigsty, it has its little corners of boxes filled with items that have yet to find a home, the ubiquitous hair ball and of course we don't get to use the dining room table on any kind of regular basis, so that is covered in various miscellanea that probably should have a permanent home. The problem isn't one of space, though this house is severely lacking in closets, which adds to the frustration of trying to clean. When it becomes necessary to stuff Aldi bags into the corner by the dog crate because there is no other place for them to live, we yearn for just one simple closet.

The problem is Black Friday and the never-ending pursuit of stuff acquisition. If I had to move out of this house tomorrow and could only take that which I have used for the past year, I could probably make one trip on a bicycle with a sturdy satchel on the rear. But that's only if I had to. Everything else has a bit of memorial significance to it which prompts me to not deposit it at the nearest Goodwill for someone else to have and hold, look at and admire. Each of these things reminds me of one event in my life or another. Photographs would most certainly make the trip with me in the bicycle. Aside from my beloved computer and a coffee mug or two and my clothes, I don't really use anything else in this house. Dishes don't count because you pretty much need them to eat off of and I could purchase a new set for very cheap at the new apartment that I would be bicycling to.

Don't get us wrong. We have made so many trip to Goodwill this year and we went on a Craig's List selling spree in the early summer. We certainly are not against ridding ourselves of the unused, non-living occupants of our house. I guess the larger question becomes why we hold so many inanimate objects close to us as though they were a living person? And then why would we choose to let them gather dust in some random corner instead of revisiting them, or stuff them into a closet?

This is not a rhetorical question it is a practical one. I remember a movie where one of the main characters was asked to house sit for her boss. When she and her boyfriend arrived to feed the cat, there was nothing but a table for the cat food and a litter box. The rest of the apartment was empty. When prompted by an inquisitive look from the boyfriend, the woman said 'He's a minimalist.'

Why can't we all be comfortable with this. I mean, of course we would need a sofa and a coffee table and a few other essential items to accommodate comfort, but what is so horrid about living with only essential things? Is it our materialist nature? Is it our fractured, lonely social order? Could we attribute this to a certain fear that our lives are completely empty without such things to bring us comfort?

I don't have an answer, nor do I yet have either an opinion or a theory.

In any case, there are far worse things I suppose we should be concentrating our analytical skills on such as where we are going to put the shit on the table, where is that attachment to the vacuum that magically removes pet hair from any surface, where is our own Billy Mays (did you know he is from Pittsburgh?) and his amazing RoboClean, which is capable of cleaning your entire house with the simple push of one button, so easy a child can operate it (cut to a child pushing a button on a devise and watching in amazement and wonderment as if it were a home work doing machine)... and the like...

Oh there is so much stuff to do. At least we found all the requested diet drinks for our guests after no less than six, yes six, stores. Now if we can only locate a single bag of Gardetto's pumpernickel rye chips to complete the recipe for chex mix, we're all set.

Labels: black friday , holidays , house , Thanksgiving