During the tenancy of every Housing resident, an inspection must be conducted. My sentiments about the painstaking work I did to clean up my apartment, and arrange my possessions in an orderly fashion, can best be expressed in the form of a poem, which follows.
This House Is Clean
I cleaned the apartment
What a chore!
Not just the veneer
But to the core
I scrubbed and buffed
Until my arms were sore
I got cleaning products
From the Dollar Store
It is so clean
It won't need cleaning anymore
I scrubbed every baseboard
And every creaking door
I washed the windows
And swept the floor
Will it stay spotless, evermore?
It may be trashed by the weekend
If not before
When the team of two inspectors came into my apartment on September 16, 2009 at 2:07 p.m., all appeared to be in order. They concluded their inspection at 2:09 p.m.
The real story of the preparation for this inspection began in 1988. That is when I first got a storage space. Over the years, I learned that if one has a storage space, one can acquire vast quantities of items, enjoy their observational value, and then hide them out of view in the storage space. Also, when one moves, one can just toss anything and everything in a few boxes and toss it in the storage shed. It can always be sorted out later. Well, that "later" turned out to be from July to September, 2009. I got all my stuff out of storage, and it amounted to about 100 boxes, as well as numerous printers, bicycles, paper cutters, stereo speakers, clothes and more clothes, office supplies, books, VCR tapes, cassette tapes, CD's, coin collections, coffee mugs, kitchen stuff, old papers, important papers, junk papers kept just in case they would one day be needed for some legal matter or other, old income tax forms, oh, and did I mention tools, tools, and more tools? I had some paint and paint brushes that I had in storage for years. All you have to do is shake that can of paint up, open it up with a screwdriver, and you are ready to paint wood, even if the paint was in storage for 5 or 10 years. Little details like combustible materials not being allowed in storage spaces should be overlooked during a time of intense personal emergency, when you need to build and paint furniture without the benefit of having an actual workshop, but all the work must be done in your actual apartment.
Just take a gander at the table I built from scratch. The chairs I fully refurbished. Do you realize that I used Plastic Wood to patch up 48 holes in those two chairs where countersunk screws had been installed? And for your consideration is this dresser that will be around and admired for the next 50 years or so. It was brown and had no knobs, but the knob holes were in the center of the drawers, and they are now all patched up. The top was very scratched and gouged. Before you take a dresser for granted, you should know its history, and learn how it did not start out as just another furniture show room pretty face. The full restoration was done entirely by me. Yes, with me around, America is a safe haven for old, abandoned, worn out and discarded dressers.
I have always believed each and every American citizen should have a minimum of five paper cutters. Why? Because they do not make them like they used to.
All the books I have collected amounted to quite a few boxes of books. I have every intention of reading a lot of these books. I just had to get the work out of the way first.
I have three entire boxes of software.
I also have good intentions pertaining to all the VCR tapes I have collected. When I see a good movie at a yard sale or thrift store, I grab it. One day I will get around to watching it.
I did not yet mention the more than 4,000 45 rpm records I have collected. They are now in 27 boxes. I also have quite a few 33 rpm records. As everyone knows, these items are no longer made. But sales are brisk at used record stores. The best records I have I consider to be a treasure.
After two months of hard work sorting all this stuff out into its proper categories, I do not feel like a better person. But I do feel like a more organized person. And when I die, whoever gets this stuff will be grateful for all the sorting out I did. Long live order and propriety, and may the days of slothful people, who clutter up the world and fool their bosses into thinking they are industrious, be cut short just as they are applying online for their Social Security benefits.
(c) 2009 by Hooknose McGee
