Sorting is a key part of spring

Most folks call it “spring cleaning.”
I think of it in terms of, “Why do we own this?”
Sunday, true to form, we tried to do some re-arranging and cleaning up in the garage.
I say, “true to form” because we — as usual — missed the Portland street department’s spring clean-up day. Fortunately, we didn’t have any large objects to haul to the curb.
But we did have some things to get rid of. And we had more than one thing that prompted me to wonder, “Why do we own this?”
In truth, the garage was not in bad shape. We took it on as a major project a couple of years ago. This weekend’s agenda involved making things more organized and cleaning up the mess from a few unfinished projects.
Unfinished projects are something of a hallmark in my family. There’s a refinishing project in the garage that I’ve been working on for nearly a decade now.
It must be in the genes. Years ago, someone told me about visiting my father’s household when he was a child. He was one of eight kids, and every single one of them had some sort of project — model airplane, knitting, science experiment, you name it — going on all the time.
Fortunately, my wife’s family has the same affliction, though more of their projects seem to work their way to fruition.
Just the same, as we poked and prodded our way through the garage on Sunday, we stumbled on more than our share of half-completed endeavors.
Add that to the sorts of things that just seem to accumulate on their own, and it begins to add up.
The plan was to move a tall, metal unit with several shelves from one end of the garage to a spot near the front and to move a nice Craftsman tool chest that I received for Father’s Day a few years back to the spot where the shelf had been. Doing so would make it far, far easier to get in and out of the tool chest.
I also saw it as an opportunity to “edit” the stuff on the tall, metal thingie.
On the top shelf, I encountered a number of pots for plants. Some were left over from long deceased houseplants that had been gifts at some time or another. Some were junk. One revealed when I turned it over that my wife had made it in 1962, when she was 12 years old. Obviously, that was staying in a place of honor.
Then there were the miscellaneous auto supplies. A large container of windshield wiper fluid. A large — and probably unopened — container of coolant/antifreeze. Neither of us could remember the details of their purchase.
There was a kind of carryall made of wood, with rope handles. One piece of wood was broken. I saw something to throw out. My wife explained how she had found it useful and why she had kept it.
As I was clearing the shelves, I noticed a brand-new set of windshield wipers on the other side of the garage. Purchased at the same time as the windshield wiper fluid, I figured.
My wife wasn’t sure. What she did remember is that it was a buy-two-get-one-free special. Would it fit on her car? She wasn’t 100 percent sure. I let it go.
And then, while clearing off the top of the tool chest, I came across a small, unopened cardboard box with my name on the address label.
The return address said it was from some lighting company.
I wracked my brain.
What could I have ordered that I never opened and simply put in the garage for five years? Five years. That’s what the package said.
I opened the box and immediately wondered, “Why do we own this?”
It was some sort of special light bulb that’s supposed to turn itself on when it’s dark and turn itself off when it’s light. (How it keeps from switching back and forth, I do not know. It seems to me that if it turns itself on, then it’s light and it should turn itself back off, then it’s dark, and so it turns itself on again in some endless cycle.)
To my relief, my wife assured me I had not ordered it. She had.
But she wasn’t sure why. And she wasn’t sure why it sat in the garage unopened.
I think it had to do with one of her projects.[[In-content Ad]]