I live in a small apartment with one bedroom. I need a bigger place with one more bedroom. As George Carlin would have said, "I need a place for my stuff." My "stuff" is made up of my books and art supplies. There are no bicycles, no tools, none of Gran'ma's knick-knacks. I don't have every Barbie doll ever made, Beanie Babies, Thomas "The Painter of Light" Kinkade schotzkes or Fenton glass.
Books -- just books and art stuff and one fishin' pole, that's me. And Christmas ornaments and a fabric stash and my collection of real photo postcards. Oh, I forgot about all my little tiny race cars, a set of Cartier china, glass insulators, and the pickle jars I just hate throwing out. Coffee cans -- I love coffee cans and you never know when you might need one. I have totes on every doorknob and one of those totes is full of the $1 shopping totes I use when I go to the store.
Then there's my honest-to-gosh steamboat lantern with a Fresnel lens and the combination hole punch/binder thing-y Carl bought me to make calendars (I actually use the thing pretty frequently -- adding to my reading stash). I fold all my clothes and put them in drawers, hang up my coats and dresses, put my shoes in a line beneath the chest. And a miter box, an electric drill, as well as my very own jigsaw (I was so damn proud when I went to the big box store to purchase my own tools).
So why am I upset when I see garages in my neighborhood like the one above -- and there are a lot of them -- full of the ephemera of daily life. These houses have full basements, three bedrooms and a utility room. But there's no room for the family car -- or three.
Don't they make attics any more?
This Speedway resident has a nice tidy garage with actual room for their vehicles. The homeowners rent parking spaces to race-goers and the freezer is for the ice they sell, too.
But this one worries me. When I first saw it I thought the homeowners were getting ready to move. There are two of these storage units in the drive, as well as stuff hanging on racks just outside the pods. Crammed damned full. That was a year ago and it looks the same.
