It's Only Stuff

 Chuckle #467 | September 21, 2011
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Can you remember the days when you could move all your stuff in a single trip in your Toyota Corolla? If something didn’t fit in the car, you left it behind. All you owned was a suitcase, an inflatable mattress, and a bike. When life beckoned you took off like a clown from a cannon.

However, after a few years in the working world you felt compelled to abandon your slacker ways. It was time, you thought, to grow up. This meant buying a bed, a dining room table and a couch. As if having dinner parties where people didn’t sit on the floor was some kind of inescapable rite of passage. Before you even realized what was happening, you had accumulated a U-Haul worth of “stuff.”

Possessions forced you to say “no” to opportunities and spur of the moment moves. You were no longer the nimble free spirit you once were. Life beckoned, but your hiney was firmly stuck to your new couch.

Then you met a great guy and decided that he was worth the nightmare of double stuff. And I’m not talking Oreos, I’m talking 18 wheeler.

Once you were officially married, you had your parents’ blessing to hook up under their roof and produce fully legitimate grandkids. So you and your newly acquired husband had three. The resulting accursed collection of Little Tykes molded plastic required a room of its own.

So you bought a house.

You thought the ‘stuff’ situation couldn’t get any worse, but then your parents showed up during your housewarming party with a trailer full of stuff you left behind after college, plus a few things they claimed were “grandma’s” which you could not refuse to take (for sentimental reasons).

Your folks gleefully unloaded the trailer into your garage then bolted for Bora Bora. You gazed wistfully after them.

Then you needed two 18 wheelers to move.

One day you woke up and were surprised to find that every nook and cranny in your house was filled with STUFF despite your generous contributions to Goodwill over the years.

Fast forward to today...

Now you realize that you are living in a giant JUNK DRAWER and it freaks you out. You are faced with a tough decision. Buy a bigger house, force HomeGoods into bankruptcy, get a dumpster, or have a yard sale.

Because I have masochistic tendencies, I chose yard sale.

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“It’s only stuff,” said the lady carrying off the antique chair I bought when I was 25 at an auction, intending to reupholster.
“It’s only stuff,” said the guy as he walked away with my first briefcase.
“It’s only stuff,” said the lady who bought the Japanese tea-boxes I schlepped all the way home from Tokyo.
“It’s only stuff,” said the 20 something guy when he offered me a quarter for a classic Stones CD.
A quarter! I took the CD out of his hand. “It may only be stuff,” I said, “but this CD is still going to cost you a dollar.”

If I sell another 1,000 books, the contents of my attic, Grandma’s rocking chair (purportedly - though I have my doubts), and the mystery boxes under the stairs, I might someday be able to move in ONE eighteen wheeler.

You just watch. The next time life beckons I’ll be VERY close to being ready.
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