Middle Ages Man

Aug. 27, 2010

Ever since our oldest daughter got married and moved out of our house, I’ve been on a mission to dump the leftovers in her old room.  It’s been a challenge, however, for a variety of reasons.

First of all, she was the consummate packrat.  Proof in point: as I was digging under her bed, I found 13 old T-shirts she still “loved” and had saved to make a quilt, a quirky 2003 calendar of “cute” frogs in various poses (one with a crown on his head), a crusty and smelly pair of old toe shoes, a couple of whistles from her camp counselor and lifeguard days, and a saucepan of hardened, burned wax that she’d hung onto as a memento of the time she set her college apartment on fire with a studio project.

Second, my husband, Mr. Pile Don’t File, has taken the room over, and he’s lined the perimeter with various containers of fishing odds and ends – particularly, materials he uses to make fishing flies.  Most people would pay someone to dispose of road kill on their property, but my husband pays a “manufacturer” to deliver squirrel tails, rabbit hide, and pheasant feathers right to our door! So when I found a drowned robin on our front walk the other day, I decided to save it for him just in case. And those mice in the basement?  I don’t look at them the same way any more. A rodent saved is a rodent earned, I always say.

As I stared in amazement at just one more box he’d stacked on the heap, I got this picture of Noah’s friends and neighbors thousands of years ago furiously sandbagging as the waters began to rise. And I lost hope.

That effort was as successful as I have been to stem the tide of equipment my husband brings into the house to pursue his interests. After forays into water color painting, wood working, wood carving, biking, cooking and baking, I’m at a loss to figure out what to do with all of his stuff.

My husband’s mother, a shrewd and impeccable neat-nick, used to smuggle things his father had hung onto, but no longer used, to the garbage when he wasn’t looking (she said he never missed it!), and she encouraged me to do the same. But the problem is that my Renaissance Man uses all of it: from the studded bike tires that keep him upright during the winter to the pasta machine to the wood chisels and the easel. 

Get rid of it?  The garbage can might as well have a lock and key on it. 

So I’ve decided to look on the bright side.  When I was sewing the inside wallet pocket of my husband’s trench coat shut wrestling with a button, he was confidently stitching our daughter’s Girl Scout merit badges on her uniform sash.   When I resisted spending the money to custom frame a new print we’d bought in Europe, my husband brandished a mat cutter, and whipped out a product Mrs. Leonardo Da Vinci would be proud to put on her wall.  When the frayed wires of my hair dryer begged for a toss in the dumpster, one trip to Home Depot and an hour later, my husband had restored the tool to good-as-new status.

“Did UPS come today?” my husband wanted to know when he got home from work one day last week. “I have an order coming.”  I just smiled.  It’s good when a man has his priorities straight!

© Copyright 2010 Karol Allen

What treasures are you hanging onto and why?