The danger of cleaning your garage with your spouse
Do you know who the worst person to organize your garage with is? Your spouse.
Do you know the only person who wants to organize your garage with you? Your spouse.
But Spring cleaning your garage with your spouse is a dangerous proposition.
There is baggage that comes with it, and I don’t mean the carry-on roller boards, check-in suitcases, briefcases, duffle bags, tote bags, messenger bags, garment bags, backpacks, hydration packs, and Fanny packs you’ve collected over the years.
No.
I mean all the little arguments that have come up every time you’ve unsuccessfully tried to clean the garage.
The ones that remain unresolved, as if they were scientific enigmas, like will there ever be a unifying theory of everything? Are we alone in the universe? And who convinced humans that cottage cheese was a palatable snack?
Recently, I asked my wife if we could leave the garage window curtain open to let in some light while we organized.
“As long as you put it back up.”
“I was hoping we could leave it down for a few days while we worked on the garage.”
“Hmmm, no. I wouldn’t want to invite people snooping around.”
“Snooping around what?”
“Our stuff,” and she opened her arms, signaling at all the piles of indistinguishable stuff lying all around us.
“Who would want to snoop around this?” was my only thought.
Sure. There is probably something in there you can sell for a few cents on OfferUp, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or eBay after months of reposting it and negotiating with really weird people.
But it is buried under unopened mail, half-broken down cardboard boxes, incomplete puzzles, unopened art projects, and piles of CVS receipts.
In her defense, she doesn’t know what I know; no one wants to snoop around our stuff. I know, because I secretly hope a hardened criminal will “steal” all the contents from our garage. Actually, I don’t only hope, I “forget” to close the garage door once a week.
But every time I come back home after a day of having the door wide open, I find that not even a paper clip has disappeared.
I guess that’s on me for choosing to live in a good neighborhood.
Justine tells me, "You think you have nothing in the piles, but you are wrong. The piles are also yours."
As an immigrant, I find that offensive. When you leave your country, you are forced to become a minimalist.
There is only so much you can haul with you.
It really is not much more than what you can hold in a bindle. You know a bindle: it's all your belongings balled up on a sheet, then hanging over your shoulder on a stick.
I only have two things in the garage.
I have a giant 80-quart bin full of fartsy-fancy books I promised myself I would read one day and finally become the intellectual I've always wanted to be. And because I own them and I will read them one day, I can be an intellectual snob now.
I also have an Emergency Preparedness box full of shelf-stable foods like pasta and beans.
I'm very scared of this nondescript emergency because I will have to deal with whatever the emergency is, but also the incredible intestinal distress caused by these foods because they don't agree with my stomach — you might even say I will suffer from Apocalyptic Flatulence.
Okay, fine.
I have a few more things in the garage.
But why should I get rid of my things? Why should I be an immigrant a second time? Let's start with my wife's stuff first, then we can fit mine.
Then Justine accused, "You just don't like my stuff."
That’s not true.
I love that our house is welcoming and beautiful, not only for the different holidays but also for the different seasons.
I just love my stuff more.
I also don’t like that we are unable to get rid of anything we spent money on before we try to sell it, but not just sell it, but sell it and make a profit on it.
That’s a surefire way to recover your money in a really long time and have no space at home at all.
And then there are the attached emotions that spring out of nowhere.
Or maybe not out of nowhere, but out of the place where we feel the crushing despair and futility of life, so we assign meaning to meaningless things.
“I can’t possibly get rid of this journal. It was given to me by the office supplies clerk working the shift when I bought it.”
“I can’t possibly get rid of this pen. I wrote things with it.”
“I can’t possibly get rid of this staple; it once held together two or more nondescript papers.”
I have tried in the past to get rid of some of Justine’s things sneakily.
Somehow, from the millions of things we have, she always ends up needing or wanting that one thing.
The moment I get rid of anything, a part of her brain is activated, and she asks for it.
It is as if God exists, and he is a hoarder and is very upset with me for getting rid of my wife’s stuff.
So he sends a message to Justine.
Of course, if God exists, he IS a hoarder.
He started his collection of humans with one, then two, then look at us.
How did god let the population get so out of control?
“I swear to myself, God, that there was this human I needed, and I put him right here around the Appalachian mountains. Now I can’t find it. It is the darnest thing. This is probably the work of the devil. That snake! Oh well, I guess I’ll have to create another 100,000 humans. One of them will have to do. Good thing I’m omnipotent and shit.”
That’s how it started. Eight billion people later, and we have climate change, late-stage capitalism, and scrotox — which is Botox for your scrotum.
So my advice to all couples is to stop stressing over stuff. Let the piles grow, and your love flourish.
Because cleaning your house is the stuff divorce is made of. Then you will have two garages to fill with stuff, and believe you me, they will get filled.
So let it go.
Then you can enjoy marital bliss as if you were in a Nicholas Sparks novel.
Only that instead of climbing into bed and calmly passing while holding hands, you will die holding hands, suffocated under a pile of your own making.
Even God would shed a tear and say, “Awwww.”
