Well, I bit the bullet last week. It was time to retire my old " office in a cupboard " and expand my computing needs to a more expansive space.
New computers. Tick. Truck booked to take the old furniture way. Tick. Happy days! Second hand desks bought and ready to be delivered. There was only one problem:
Some poor bugger had to clean out the old stuff and get ready for the changeover.
No wonder I have put it off for twenty years.
You see, I am a bit of a hoarder. I like to keep things in case " they come in handy. " Old cables, bits and important bobs. I have long forgotten what the bits were for and the bobs are much the same.... but, well, you just never know, do you?
not mine. But the vibe works. Mine is rather shitty and crap actually
My Dad was great at keeping things for that one time when he would be looking for a special tool and he could wander out to his garage and find it in a screw top jar or a bucket or box labelled "odds and ends. " Or " Bits and bobs. " Or "nuts and bolts. "
You know the drill.
Mum, Redhead, was not and never has been a fan of these treasure boxes of " goodies. "
In fact, she is a great advocate of the " in doubt, throw it out " school. Dad and I, on the other hand, were very much members of the opposite school.
But, it came to pass, that I needed to change direction. It seemed logical to bid my monster " office in a cupboard " goodbye, my aging lounge and bags of cables and stored emergency paraphernalia a sad departure to the tip.
Redhead having learning that I had started to finally follow her advice.
But why do we hoard? Keep things " just in case?"
I wonder if it is because we were born in an era that was post-war and where everything was worth something?
My late Dad was a child of the Depression. He knew hardship. Mum was a teenager in WW II. She lived through the polio epidemic. Her life was impacted by school closures and quarantines in New Zealand all those decades ago.
I did not, being one of the so-called Boomer generation. But I grew up with two parents who had been there and done that. Waste was not in our family vocabulary.
Perhaps because Mum grew up on a farm in rural New Zealand, she did not suffer the same deprivation my Dad did in his Manx home.
I don't know and will never know what made my parents who they are. But I do know that I grew up in an era of plenty.
An era of fun. And laughter. Gratitude and joy.
I taught my daughters the value of a dollar - passed down by my parents.
Whether they do the same with their children and grandchildren remains to be seen.
Passing knowledge from one generation to another is not the sole right of aboriginal cultures, is it? We whities have that same right and responsibility.
Anyway, back to my clean out and cull of the old and in with the new.
Pensioner Pete sent me an email suggesting that I might find a stash of cash buried deep within the vaults of my old office in a cupboard.
Alas, I found two feisty cockroaches and a rather old and fossilised piece of something unidentifiable.
I might have to send it off to the Bruce Pascoe Institute for Sacred Sites.
On reflection, I had better not. I don't want my office shut down for archeological digs, smoking ceremonies and protest marches.
One thing I do know is that I am buggered and tomorrow will be the big day when the truck moves in and my Dad will be yelling from above saying " Shaydee! Are you sure you won't need that? "
And Mum, on the phone, telling me to chuck MORE OUT!
Well, what can I say?
The cockies are gonski and the petrified piece of who knows what has been despatched to the great sacred burial ground known as the rubbish bin.
Don't tell anyone. These days, killing a cockroach could be a crime. Meanwhile, Koalas and Brumbies? Peachy Dandy.
In the meantime, someone PLEASE want to help me find a cable I am missing?
Oh, wait, that was tossed out yesterday.
