L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Levitation. Please.

December 1, 2008 on 7:18 pm | | In General Musing

I’ve been avoiding writing about this. I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I am profoundly grateful that I have a job and a home and the wherewithal to recarpet it. I just wish I didn’t actually have to live through the recarpeting part. At nine a.m. in the morning, Hell comes knocking at the door. Carrying 2000 sq. ft. of carpet.

We’re paying for a dozen years of benign neglect of our home. But the time has come to face up to it, roll up the sleeves, gird the loins and… pack up everything.

You see, it turns out that you can’t actually replace the carpet in your house if there’s anything sitting ON the carpet. You basically have to move out. In the absence of pixie dust or levitating devices we have to rely on primitive methods: child labor.

I am not the pack rat type. I swear. I’ve always got a bag for Goodwill or a box for Half Price Books. I don’t shop. Much. I have closets - rooms even - that are virtually empty. And yet somehow, this vast ringing emptiness has disgorged dozens upon dozens of boxes full of residential effluvia: Books, papers, LPs (irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind ones that must be preserved, even if we don’t have a turntable), casettes (same story), CDs, vases, candles, DVDs, cables, lamps, instruments + parts, and… stuff.  Stuff now piled in the garage. Stuff waiting still to be added to the pile before the carpeteers arrive in the morning.

I’ve become a big fan of freecycle.org, a network for matching up trash with treasure-seekers. And it works. That bagful of empty DVD cases? No fewer than eight people in my immediate area wanted them! Old jigsaw puzzles, a broken marble end table, a pair of ancient stereo speakers were snatched up in minutes. (the marble for a wood sculptor who wanted it for bases for her artwork). I am still looking for a home for a single folding bar stool with a broken leg. Any takers? It’s mostly stable. So far.

But on top of the sheer effort of packing twelve years of residency into one garage, is the personal blame. When pressed the spouse does not deny that our ratty, stained, twenty-year-old carpet needs replacing. But even so, every box, every reminder, every slightest inconvenience is my fault.

But I’m tough. I’ll endure the glaring, muttering, moaning and sighing for a few more days. When it’s all over and we’re riding high on the chemical outgassing of our new carpets, all the hassle will be forgotten.

Until it’s time to put everything back.

Here’s my new posting for freecycle.org: WANTED: Levitation device (Redmond).

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