ECKLEBURG
2004-09-22 - 9:13 a.m.
So we are finally having guests (my parents) over to visit in a few weeks, and this has caused that famous moment of realization: "Oh Shit, we live in a pigsty” Now part of living in a pigsty is attributable to me being a lazy slob. But a larger part has to do with the fact that we still haven’t quite figured out what to do with all of our stuff, and are thus stuck in Stage Three of the patented “Eckleburg’s Stages of Moving.”
Here is my theory so far:
Stage one of moving: the “We-haven’t-fully-unpacked-so-there-are-still-unopened-cardboard-boxes” stage. Now, I can say that we were able to blaze through this stage in about two and a half months, and made it solidly into Stage Two, the “Now-that-we-are-unpacked-what-do-we-do-with-all-our-crap” stage.
The solution to the question in Stage Two creates Stage Three: “We-can-store-a-lot-of-our-crap-by-putting-it-in-some-of-the-cardboard-boxes-leftover-from-moving-and-then-neatly-arrange-the-boxes-against-a-wall” Stage. And its mutation, Stage 3B “Not-everything-fits-in-the-boxes-stored-against-the-wall-so-the-rest-of-our-crap-goes-wherever-is-convenient”
Now Stage Three is a pretty decent stage. You can stay in Stage Three for quite a while. In fact you can stay in Stage Three nearly indefinitely if you are skilled at not having guests over who would be disdainful of your multiple-boxes-against-the-wall decorating choice. Indeed, if you have similarly challenged friends, or if you have managed to hide the wall-o-boxes in a spare room that can be shielded from view, you may be able to stay in Stage Three indefinitely.
Unfortunately, our wall of boxes (we had two, a product of moving from a four bedroom house into a 2 bedroom apartment) were in our spare bedroom, and in our dining area. This is a problem because my parents were sure to notice them while eating in the dining room and sleeping in the spare room.
So the need to finally move out of stage three has finally hit. So we are entering Stage Four, the “Find-actual-permanent-places-for-all-of-our-crap” stage.
This is, of course, immediately followed by Stage Five, “Take-gobs-of-our-crap-to-Goodwill,” and Stage Six, the “Buy-new-furniture-to-hold-all-of-crap-we-still-can’t-find-places-for” stage.
Our journey through Stage Six took us to Ikea, where we bought a giganto shelving system/room separator thingy and many, many attractive red boxes with shiny corner protectors. Sure we are essentially just trading our cardboard boxes stacked against a wall for fancy red cardboard boxes stored on a glorified bookshelf, but it looks a heck of a lot better.
We are finishing up with Stage Six now, so as we discover Stage 7 and beyond, I’ll keep you informed.
