Last weekend we gutted the basement. The lesson I learned (beside realizing I can still scream like a girl) was that if you don’t like something – don’t ignore it. 25 years of ignoring can only hurt you in the end. That journey of a thousand miles will start with a step up a flight of stairs carrying an endless pile of wood paneling and completely ridiculous, horrible, gross crap. It also forced me once again to ponder the definition of the word “hoarder.” If you keep the “public” areas of your home neat and clutter free (okay, most, ugh, some of the time), but hide a mountain of shit in the basement, can you honestly say your are not hoarder? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question.

First I put the elderly, yet beloved, treadmill on Craigs list. I lost a lot of weight on this baby, about 10 years ago. I started at $125 it’s now down to $50. I am one step away from dragging it to the end of the driveway and putting a free sign on it. Which is what I’m pretty sure Ben wants to do with me, Hannibal Lector style. And I can’t blame him. This is awful. I realized early on that the dumpster wasn’t going to hold even half of the mess we were generating. So instead of throwing the endless supply of paneling into the dumpster, I started a pile, a huge pile, “A pile o paneling”…which is how I listed it on Craigs. I considered offering to pay someone to come and take it away. But I put a dollar as the price and free in the description, and true to the Cinderella story there IS a foot for every shoe. Within an hour someone called to say they wanted it. Huh…he came, we packed, he left. Unbelievable.

Say what you will about me, I’m sarcastic, I bitch too much, I don’t accessorize well (actually I don’t accessorize well) but I am a hard worker – but this has been brutal. As always, there was the obligatory injury, a whole lot of cursing and the overwhelming desire to smoke. I know, get over it. But during times like this, when completely disgusted and freaked out, one wishes to take a break and hasten their own death. Is that so wrong?

So, for the first time in this entire process, I think I may be in over my head. It could be exhaustion or the fact that it’s the last room and I don’t want this to be over (probably not) or just the “what the hell is that” response to every thing down there, but I’m struggling. I should note that there is a bathroom in the basement. A bathroom that has not been used by anyone in this house ever. Never, ever in over twenty years. The kids would have peed outside, in the front yard, before they would have used that bathroom. I couldn’t deal with the bathroom, I just couldn’t do it. Isn’t it enough that I probably have been exposed to diphtheria, or released the 1918 influenza? Enter Graham.

By the time we got Graham over here to “do a few things” the arguments were in full swing. We disagreed about whether to put a shower in the bathroom, where the wall should end, where the door to the laundry room should go, what kind of floor to put in… I was practically apoplectic. While he’s talking I’m thinking, “who put a quarter in you? We have been at this for over a year (okay, a lot over, geeze) and you choose NOW to have an opinion? The last room? Room ten? WTF happened to grin and nod? Just grin and nod damnit!”

 

So, in short, we need help. Well, I need help, Ben would tell you he needs a good divorce lawyer. But phase one is complete. I warned you, Blair Witch without the charm. I still need to sell the bowflex though. It won’t fit in the basement once we put a ceiling in. The treadmill is sold and one half of the space is empty – no I’m not showing you a photo of the other half. This week will be the Ben and Graham show replacing windows, framing, insulating and if we are lucky sheet rock. I will be helping, when I can (read want) but I’ve decided in the interest of all concerned (two alpha males, no waiting) I will take a less involved role. Stop laughing. I have to work to pay Graham. He makes move than I do an hour. Anybody need a website?