Found my crap...stuff...crappy stuff

When I left Pascagoula, MS for a return engagement in Japan I was newly divorced and living alone in a small house in a quiet neighborhood. I had everything a single guy needed and, besides, I spent a lot of time on the ship deploying to the Caribbean to look for druggies.

It was 1997 when they come to pack up my stuff and it was 2005 when they brung it back to me. And when I saw it I was apalled! It all looked like it came from the garbage pile outside someone's home. And to make matters worse...I think it looked pretty much like that going in. I guess single guys don't realize all their stuff looks like a Salvation Army drop off. At least this one didn't. My current wife was just shaking her head and cutting me sideways looks every time they brought something else in. I had about three nice things, and I think that was mostly by accident.

Then you should have seen her eyes when they carried in three tackle boxes. And one of them was the size of a medium suitcase. And then they carried in about 15 fishing rods. Then four toolboxes. Then some walking sticks, truck accessories, a slingshot and a lawn jockey. I got the ol' silent re-evaluation for sure. She's only known me as an apartment dweller in Japan and was not prepared for all of this outdoor stuff. Nor was she expecting for peopleto come knocking on the door to see if I want to go fishing. And that's just stupid anyway. Don't ask me me if...ask me when.

They broke a butt ton of my stuff. In case you're wondering, that's a lot. Just tore it up bad. So bad in fact, that before the guys in Orlando brought it down to me they even photographed the carnage. Then the boss sent along a blank damaged goods form for me to fill out THAT HE HAD ALREADY SIGNED!! That is not a common practice, I can assure you.

I only wish that they had broken more.

See, I was going to send almost all of m stuff to the dump when it came in. I was also gonna redistribute some of it to my brother, but after seeing the stuff my two point plan became a one point plan.

Now, I'm just gonna fill out a simple form, mail it to Orlando, get paid for all my broke stuff, then send it to the dump. See how we inserted the step get paid? As in get paid for stuff I was going to toss anyway. Is this a great country, or what?

One box I opened last night made me stop in my tracks. Then I just sat in the floor and went through a lot of it right on the spot. It was a bunch of my old stuff I'd written. Old stuff. From as far back as 1977 and 78...when my age still had the word teen in it. There were all 3 issues of a high school magazine we used to put together. My old notebooks where I'd filled every page. I am also hoping there are 2 large books in it (about 200 pages each, all full) that I fear I have lost during my wanderings. It was all stuff I'd written in my mid to late twenties when I was stomping across the globe for the first few times and everything was new. And everything was inspiring. I will pick through that particular box very carefully after I get the rest of this stuff sorted. I'd say fully 75% of the stuff we opened last night went straight on the back of the truck for a dump run. And I'd be telling the truth.

I opened another box that had my boots in it. I had found my alligator boots at Mom's house a couple of years back, which is about right since that's where I had left them. But I was sure I had left my other exotics there, too, and even went so far as to have the folks take me to their storage unit where I pawed through stuff for nearly an hour looking for the rest of my boots. Heh heh heh...looking fer me booty.

Last night I found my knockabout boots, my black & red flame boots (a real Brooks & Dunn kinda vibe there), my lizard, my snake and my ostrich skin boots. That is correct folks, we have been reunited. The alligators are packed and on their journey here as we speak.

Mundane mundanity for sure. But that's life on the edge of the big city. Really. It is.

Oh yeah, check this out. I also have a bunch of stuff now that The Red Queen wrote when she was a teenager too. Back when we first discovered we had us a kinship thing a going on. I won't promise to post any of them. But I will thraten to...Bwaaaahhhahahaha!

All tired, out
Ramblin' Ed