Home from Home
The local charity shops are beginning to look more like home than home does.
'That's a nice shirt', I think, and realise I thought that very same thing ten years ago when I bought it.
Meanwhile, home is beginning to look like a charity shop with its spilling bags of this and that.
Every so often, a clearing appears until its swamped by a tide of cupboard contents.
I'm not sure if I'm getting better at throwing stuff away or whether I'm merely relocating it and putting the decisions off till another day. Sometimes, allowing a few objects to hang around for a few days means that they start to irritate me and it's really easy to move them on. At other times, I become increasingly attached to things that should really go. I can't give away the Lego, for instance- and the pile of torn children's books that I read bedtime stories from over and over again.
But there are pristine and beautiful children's books that were never opened because they were so smart and proper, and those ones will easily be given away because they don't seem to belong to the past in the way the worn out ones do.
What about movement-sensitive Big Mouth Billy Bass? He used to hang on our wall in our old house and suddenly sing 'Don't worry, be happy' if you walked past him, his rubber head folding scarily sideways and his lips smacking as he robotted at you. He's truly scary. Could I use him in my office to frighten students who haven't done their essays? Or should he be re-homed to a loving family to mouth at their visitors and make their toupees fall off?
I rescued a miniature Casio keyboard from the bin. The battery cover departed years ago but it still plays in a tinkly-tonkly sort of way and I will keep that on the desk at work next to the printer to make strange electronic noises on when everything gets too corporate. I'm in trouble for not having my photo taken for the staff notice board, and I feel a miniature electronica song coming on as we speak.
There are large quantities of coins of obsolete denominations too. I wonder where they came from? I'm sure we never went to half those countries. There seem to be at least two in the bottom of every drawer. Maybe an un-burglar has been placing them there in a fit of misplaced generosity.
And it is finally time to throw away the storm-tossed false teeth I found on the beach at Arisaig in Scotland. What a terrible loss they will be!
'That's a nice shirt', I think, and realise I thought that very same thing ten years ago when I bought it.
Meanwhile, home is beginning to look like a charity shop with its spilling bags of this and that.
Every so often, a clearing appears until its swamped by a tide of cupboard contents.
I'm not sure if I'm getting better at throwing stuff away or whether I'm merely relocating it and putting the decisions off till another day. Sometimes, allowing a few objects to hang around for a few days means that they start to irritate me and it's really easy to move them on. At other times, I become increasingly attached to things that should really go. I can't give away the Lego, for instance- and the pile of torn children's books that I read bedtime stories from over and over again.
But there are pristine and beautiful children's books that were never opened because they were so smart and proper, and those ones will easily be given away because they don't seem to belong to the past in the way the worn out ones do.
What about movement-sensitive Big Mouth Billy Bass? He used to hang on our wall in our old house and suddenly sing 'Don't worry, be happy' if you walked past him, his rubber head folding scarily sideways and his lips smacking as he robotted at you. He's truly scary. Could I use him in my office to frighten students who haven't done their essays? Or should he be re-homed to a loving family to mouth at their visitors and make their toupees fall off?
I rescued a miniature Casio keyboard from the bin. The battery cover departed years ago but it still plays in a tinkly-tonkly sort of way and I will keep that on the desk at work next to the printer to make strange electronic noises on when everything gets too corporate. I'm in trouble for not having my photo taken for the staff notice board, and I feel a miniature electronica song coming on as we speak.
There are large quantities of coins of obsolete denominations too. I wonder where they came from? I'm sure we never went to half those countries. There seem to be at least two in the bottom of every drawer. Maybe an un-burglar has been placing them there in a fit of misplaced generosity.
And it is finally time to throw away the storm-tossed false teeth I found on the beach at Arisaig in Scotland. What a terrible loss they will be!
posted by Helen McCookerybook at Tuesday, September 15, 2009
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