After the stellar weather of last weekend, today is back to the usual summer hot'n'humid. And I am in slug mode, so I'm not about to join the legions of runners jogging up the block to the park. I did make a foray downtown to Bed, Bath & Beyond -- or, as I have begun calling it, Bed, Bath & Bordello -- for several unglamorous but highly utilitarian items such as a wastebasket and a doormat. I also stopped at the gourmet grocery for some fresh-squeezed OJ and some 70% cacao dark chocolate. Hey! A girl's gotta eat, ya know! And of course the liquor store for a cold bottle of pinot grigio. This has all been run-up to what is becoming the high point of my weekend: diving into the remaining cartons in the guest room closet.
Now that Brian has taken all of his sweaty-smelly young guy clothes and belongings and headed back to college, I can finally turn the second bedroom into a space that other people can actually use. All the remaining cartons from the move were stashed in the closet here, just waiting for this very moment. So, glass of wine in hand, I have begun!
It's like I'm having flashbacks! While tearing up 10-year-old bank statements and cancelled checks, I'm remembering the guys I was dating then. It was right after I got divorced and I was casting the net rather widely. (As opposed to now, when I've become completely disillusioned and pulled the net out of the water completely - but that's another story.) Anyway, as I work my way through the pinot, I'm doing some weird time traveling. I'm looking at some of these old checks and I don't even remember who the payees are that I've written them too. Then an old rent check goes by and I go, "oh man! look what I was paying back then!" Or some weird name crops up and I'm thinking "who the hell was that and why was I paying him $74.12? And then there's a check to my ex and I'm wondering why the fuck I was giving him money at all. He should have been giving me...well, never mind. That's a long, strange tale and it's not over yet. But I think when all is said and done, everything comes out even in the end. At least I hope so.
And then there's the 12-year-old tax returns. I don't need to keep them, do I? I mean, why would anyone want to look at them? What value could they possibly have? But then you think of, oh, Law & Order, and how they sift through all this seemingly irrelevant old stuff and come up with the murderer. So I'm thinking, maybe I should save them in case I get murdered or am accused of murder because you never know what kind of information they'll be able to glean from my stupid tax returns. And besides, after I get rid of all these bank statements and financial statements and such, I'll have so much room left that a few years' worth of tax returns won't seem like much.
It all seems so quaint now, these paper checks and paper statements and paper receipts. After resisting for quite a while, I have whole-heartedly embraced online banking and electronic bill-paying. So these days, I get very few actual bills and no actual bank statements or checks. I can see them all online. So never again will I be accumulating this shit. I have left that job to Bank of America. And you can bet your whatever you bet that they've got these things archived away on some backroom server. So when the detectives from whatever precinct it is come looking for my records, it's they and not I who will have to come up with them. And then there's all this space that is magically appearing in my closet. I'm dizzy with ideas about what to do with the space.
And by the way, there's clean sheets on the bed now.
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7 comments:
Sounds very productive! It can be good or bad when going through your old junk makes you remember things you haven't thought of in years.
That reminds me. Do you have that $74.12 I let you borrow a while back?
No, no, you've got it wrong! It was one of my cancelled checks. So, in reality, you owe it to me. Now would be a good time to pay up.
I know Im going to be looking for a new apartment again soon. My landlord is looking to sell and I know that Im going to have to leave. But it will be a good thing because I relaly hate my neighbors and that tree. Yeah I willbe bitching about that tree til its cut down. I told them to cut it down and just plant a real tree. No one wants a sumac in their front yard. But then again, they dont speak english that well.
But I will be having to go through a ton of stuff. Only mine relaly isnt paper. Just stuff. I will do it over the winter and then in the Spring, take it all to the auction so I can at least get some cash from it.
I know, it's a pain in the ass. But cleaning out and throwing away has a very therapeutic effect. And if you're going to move, it will make your life so much easier!
WriteGirl, I'm a little short this month. I need about... hmm... $74.12 for my cable bill (I've been busy with the PPV). Could you shoot me a check?
ctheokas, you gotta lay off that cable porn! There's so much free stuff online, it's just not worth paying for any more.
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