Autumn

Autumn

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Good Evening

I've found dust is best eaten with a few grains of salt. Or better yet, made into soup. I've spent the last two days giving my shop a top to bottom deep clean. I even tried to enlist the help from a few customers. Most of the bums turned me down cold. I've been home for several hours and still taste the dirt and mold spores.

Behind the shop there is a new pile of discarded junk, piled black bags and exactly six cardboard boxes of old magazines and books, about fifteen metal coffee cans and a fairly good 1985 copy of Playboy, centerfold intact.

My office refrigerator has been defrosted (it took two hours in our heat) and now shines and smells great. I still need to dust my desk and computer but the toilet sparkles and gives the scent of high mountain pines. Sadly my office carpet, though deeply vacuumed, still holds spots. One rich dark stain, as a result of spilled coffee, I blame on Duke or Senior, since both are slobs of the highest order.

I tried but failed to remove magnet and tape held drawings and one class paper, gifts from Little Bit to me, from the side of my gun cabinet and frig....they will remain, besides they give my office a cluttered charm. Certain items are sacred.

High on a back shelf was discovered fifteen years of back calendars, sixteen coffee table books, and a long lost paper bag of framed art and photos, a twenty share stock certificate (Winn-Dixie, worthless) and six copies of First Edition magazine, and several different calibers of handgun ammunition now housed within a medicine bottle.

I really should hire undocumented help.

Then again hired help might chunk great treasures into the can and tick me off. Like the one artificial rose Little Bit gave me for Valentines Day, or my Vietnam stick-pin taken from one of my old hats which now graces the back door frame. A special broken thermometer, the string of fifty caliber ammo along the back wall, or any of the many research books stacked high on the green cabinet - all weighted by an unopened green can of gun grease. I just cannot take the chance.

So, I guess I'll keep the job, dust and all.


Stephen

14 comments:

  1. Heck, I'm still trying to catch up on dishes and laundry, never mind a deep cleaning. Where does the time go?

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    1. Good question. I jump from one fire into another...

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  2. Discovering forgotten treasures and renewing the bond with others makes the work worthwhile though doesn't it?

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    1. Nope, it's work, and combined with the sweat and customers makes for a long day....but, I get your point.

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  3. The coffee stain, I'm innocent like Zimmerman, had to be Duke!

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    1. You know those Seabees....can't walk and drink coffee at the same time...

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  4. There is too much dust on my reloading bench! As soon as I finish painting this old farm house it will be time to clean it up & set my bench up in the field.

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    1. I understand...like my work/reloading bench in my garage.

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  5. Too funny. Hubby asks why do I keep some odd stuff. To me they are treasures, carefully boxed and carted every time we moved. My memories, my little pieces of love that I can just not part with. Junk? Maybe. The family can toss it when I'm gone; I won't know about it. But until then....

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  6. As someone who has dust allergies, I've always maintained that cleaning up is worst thing a person can do. As long as it's on a shelf then it isn't up my nose....

    My inner lazy Bachelor has always agreed with that position. ;^)

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  7. Senior's right: the coffee stain must be Duke's (no offense, Duke, but us old sailors are far too fond of our coffee to waste any).

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    1. Oh, Duke's an old sailor too....he just used tools on dry land and drank Cokes all day....

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