I Smell a Rat Pack Rat

I was going to renew my magazine subscription to Real Simple magazine, but since I – like many others – am trying to cut back on expenses, I decided that was one luxury I can live without.  Besides, during our last move, I was pretty successful in de-junking our abode.  Since we were downsizing from our single family house to a townhouse, it was imperative that lots had to go.  Trying to haul all that would be like trying to fit an elephant into a Volkswagen.

I’m proud I’ve made strides at my Cut-the-Crap Hoarders Anonymous meetings, and I even earned my pin…even though I had to turn right around and give it back it so it wouldn’t add to the crap in my house.

I feel so free! During the move, I was forced to discard junk that we had collected over the years. See, we patients call them “collections.” (Translation: Uh, its crap.)  It was a practice in discipline (just shut your eyes and pitch it), and although I swore, after walking up and down three flights of townhouse steps, that I’ll never move again, it is nice to know that at a moment’s notice we can pack up and haul our minimal belongings elsewhere if we’re ever on the lam or need to move into a Safe House.

Unfortunately, some people have been living all this time without the support of the C-CHA (pronounced “ka-ka”) support group.  Seems the bones of a woman in California were recently found, after she went missing for seven years, buried under her stuff!! Investigators believe she may have been looking for something, and she was smothered when her own junk fell on top of her.

Something smells here…literally. I’m a little curious about this conclusion.  Although her children, (uh, they lived around the corner?) reported her missing, did they think the smell that must have been wafting from her house was normal!? I hope my children are kind enough to tell me if I ever start having those odors emanating from my house and that they aren’t merely content knowing I’m just old and losing all my bodily functions. And, uh, where have the social security checks for this poor woman been going?

Dementia or not, I’m not taking any chances. I heard a saying once that “everything you have is everything you need.”  And I’m trying to live accordingly.

But if you don’t hear from me for a week or two, please come and check to make sure I’m not buried under that stack of DSW shoe boxes in my closet.