Sunday, June 26, 2011

Wiseman's Silver

Today, I'm going to help my wife clean up my father-in-law's house. It's a floating home. His life's raft is packed like a rat's nest with years of memorabilia and other used-to-be-useful stuff. But as the collected ponderance of his possessions weigh him down, literally anchoring him deeper into the river, he has found himself unable to move forward in life. This man has literally dammed himself on the Willamette River.

He's an old sailor.   His hair had been proudly jetblack and had transitioned into a distinguished salt & pepper, before giving way to a wiseman's silver . . . that has eventually tarnished into a nicotine stained corn silk.  He smokes because men smoke.  He knows things about living on a boat that you and I don't know.  For instance: you don't set a screwdriver down.  Not when you're working on a boat.  You use the screwdriver or put the screwdriver away.  Otherwise it's goin' in the drink.

He lives with a cat named Junior; because he named the cat after himself.   And he mostly keeps himself company.  Even when he's entertaining others; he's often really just entertaining himself.


We'll take loads of tacky mid-century thriftstore chatchkies and estate sale treasures back to the Goodwill: returning the crap to it's homeland. I'm hoping this creates a bit of karma for us. It's important not to mess with the junk gods.

 Maybe hoarders are not victims of their own minds.  They probably aren't even crazy.  They may be suffering from a curse. A pox from the hoarder god, Clearancesale, has been put on their house. Swarms of accessories have attacked their lands.  The Junk Gods are purposeful and merciless; and will not rest until they've imprisoned your most cherished moments.

These unlucky hoarder bastards have actually had their memories ripped out of their hearts and put into inanimate objects.  Dreams trapped inside dusty things.  Nostalgia has become a genie in a lamp, and a stack of magazines, and a Tupperware box of belt buckles, and three unmatched socks. The spirit of their pasts live inside the things they collect.

I will try to free one man's genies today.  Or at least keep the houseboat from sinking.  Collectors are weird and I totally respect weird.  So I'm helping my Father-in-law because he needs it and has begrudgingly accepted our offer to help.  I'll be there to ease some weight . . . not to bring anything heavy with me.  So I'm gonna just leave my judgement at home.

You use an anchor or you put the anchor aweigh.

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