Speechless & Dirty
We are having a yard sale. Would you like to stop by?
Part of our job as the new resident managers for the mini storage is to clear out the storage units people stopped paying on back in, eh, 1492.
At least that’s what the dust looks like. For while rodents and water are repelled from the cement-brick structures, that ever-present cinder-dust-filled wind is not. Every unit we open has a thick layer of dirt on everything and I’m thinking maybe we should be wearing gas masks or some kind of breathing device while we work.
(No whistling allowed, no matter how many dwarfs are involved.)
We empty the units into the large yard space in the middle, set out signs for a garage sale, and see what happens. You never know what will be a treasure to someone.
What’s very interesting is trying to figure out people’s stories based on what they leave behind in their units. It’s like archeology but we don’t need a degree and we’re unlikely to uncover King Tutankhamen’s royal diadem. Yet.
When the kids are napping I stay inside and do paperwork, write, etc. Lizard is usually out all day doing manual labor. For some reason he likes this. Since I’m allergic to sweat I view this as highly suspicious behavior, but it’s working for him and I’m happy if he’s happy.
This afternoon he burst in the office door with a chagrined look on his face.
“I have to tell you this, but I don’t know how to tell you!” he said.
I raised an eyebrow and waited.
“Well… I was cleaning out a unit with your mom and she held up a DVD and asked me if I knew anything about it.”
This didn’t really make it clear why he was bright red and stuttering. So I waited some more.
Turns out the title of the DVD was pretty explicit if you know your anatomy and scientific names of intimate excursions.
“So what did you tell her?!” I asked.
“I told her I didn’t know anything about it and scrambled to tell you!”
“So you just let my geriatric mother walk around with an explicit DVD and not know about it?! What if she asks someone else?”
“You tell her!”
I took pity on the man and I’ll make my way out to let my mom know eventually. Poor thing. I mean, it’s not every day you get to talk pornography with your mother-in-law.
But it did make me think – if I dropped dead right this instant, what would people be able to figure out about me based on my living space or what I had in storage?
What do you think your belongings say about you?