Very recently my husband and I cleared some clutter from our garage and moved it out to a storage unit. It’s kind of funny what we hang on to.
After we got married, we packed up his bachelor dishes, and bachelor towels, bachelor home décor, some old sets of silverware I had, and separated it into two equal piles for his teen sons so they have these basics when they go off to college. Naturally, we moved these boxes of necessities as well as an older TV and a vacuum cleaner out to storage. I remember my mom and I bought that vacuum cleaner when I went off to college.
It was all the other stuff we discovered, though, that made my guy and I laugh as we cleared out the garage a little further.
As he pulled stuff down from a shelf in the rafters, out came three pairs of crutches. I already had two pairs in storage. How we accumulated so many, I have no idea. Not needing five pairs of crutches, we kept a tall pair, a short pair, and donated the rest.
On a bottom shelf behind some other boxes, we found a large box full of old luggage – a wheeled carry-on, duffle bags, toiletry bags, and computer cases. His “old school” college backpack was in there. He was pretty happy that he finally found it. We took out most of the luggage pieces and donated them, too.
One box we found was labeled “Dawn’s Pom Poms.” Talk about old school. These are the types of pom poms that are bigger than a person’s head. My husband asked if I wanted to dress up like a cheerleader for Halloween. This was because he actually wanted me to dress up like a cheerleader. I said I would if he’d wear his old football uniform. I just don’t think my Oakdale Mustangs red-and-gold cheer outfit would’ve been very welcome in the rival community in which I now live, considering the recent gridiron butt-kicking, not to mention I can fit only about one leg into my old cheer skirt.
There was a box labeled with his initials and the word “Letterman Jacket” on it. His old jacket fits me and putting it on made me feel like a high school girl wearing her boyfriend’s varsity jacket. I think I’ll wear it next time we go to one of his high school football games.
“Bean Bag Chair” was written on another large box. Hey, that’s good college apartment furniture. Out to storage it went.
Another thing we had lots of: golf bags. My husband is a golfer and has collected numerous bags and clubs over the years. Even though he periodically thins the collection, there were still several bags in the garage and I’m pretty sure some are still hiding there. At least we were able to send a couple of them away.
My husband tried to convince me to take my Christmas village figurines out to storage but I convinced him I might be able to find a place for them in the house this year.
We didn’t come across his box of old trophies, but there’s room for it at storage when we do. A big camping tent, a small dresser, three side tables, college apartment bedding, and the list goes on of things that did go to the storage unit. I can’t believe we had all this stuff in our garage and could still park in there.
Believe it or not, we had a huge garage sale after we got married. We had multiple coffee pots, toasters, furniture, and all kinds of other stuff we sold that day. All these additional things were what we had decided to keep.
I told my husband that there will come a point when we’ll need to clear out the storage unit, too. I don’t want to pay rent on the thing forever and if we can’t fit it in our house and we’re not going to use it, what’s the point of holding onto it.
I imagine at some point I’ll be writing about the unusual things we find when it comes time to clear out the storage unit. Hopefully, there won’t be an entire new family of crutches that grows there unattended.
Dawn M. Henley is a staff reporter for The Oakdale Leader, The Riverbank News, and The Escalon Times. She may be reached at dhenley@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 847-3021.
