Laid-Off Dad

Evacuation, part II

It's easy to be somewhat impressed with the idea that I finally got off my ass and de-rubbled by home. But the truth is that we had another important imperative: We've set off on Estivus Peripatetica, which translates loosely to Summer Tour of Moxie's Midwestern Relatives Who Lack Cable Television. We're going to cover hundreds of miles and visit eight venues over these next ten days, stopping here and there for a visit and a cup of tepid coffee. We should print t-shirts.

Anyway, to offset the costs of this odyssey (LODyssey?) that will keep us out of the city for five glorious, soot-free weeks, we my wife found a subletter to watch the Laid-Off Lair while we're gone. We've never met this woman, a rising college sophomore, but we've talked to her many times on the phone and she seems OK, if a little distant. The only real concern is her MySpace page, in which she avers that 1) she is a promiscuous, chain-smoking drunk and 2) all of her BFFs are promiscuous, chain-smoking drunks who are CRRrrRRRAAAazzzAAAY!

She Her daddy gave us a hefty security deposit, and if one ounce of my Scotch is missing or I detect the slightest whiff of tobacco, I'm gonna cash that fucker faster than you can say "comparative negligence." (Or, for her benefit: COMMPaaRRaTiiiiivE NeGGLiGEnZ, BoYEE!). I will also link to her page and expose her photos and "crushlist" to the ridicule they so richly deserve.

Evacuation, part I

It's an exciting time for me, lounging in my mostly new apartment. Sure, we've got a new Bounce House and Bert Sanctuary, but the rest of the place has also been transformed by the Great Purge of Aught-Six. My wife and I took long, hard looks at the debris we'd amassed over the years and were suddenly freed from the heinous packrat spell that has dogged us for so long. Clothes, books, CDs, DVDs, VCR tapes, utensils, small appliances, and furniture have been donated, eBayed, shredded, or dumped. My rules have been simple:

1. Chuck anything you haven't used in two years.
2. Never leave the house without taking along something that will not come back with you.
3. Wise up, dumbass. The past is gone.

I have surprised myself by parting with some stuff I've been hanging onto forever--especially books. I worked a book-sale fundraiser for several summers in the 90s, and each time I came away with a huge box of hardbacks for a song. I've kept them around partially because I thought I would read them again, and partially because having them around made me feel smarter. Both prospects are laughable, so out they go. A local bookstore bought most of them; I sneaked the rest into the dollar bins on the sidewalk.

Another big item was the varsity jacket I bought when I was 24 and decided I wanted to dress like David Letterman. My wife has been begging me to get rid of it for years, and when she came across it in the Goodwill pile she cried real tears for my Watershed Moment of personal growth. Then she covered my head with gleeful, slightly patronizing kisses.

The old Maclaren makes a damn fine hand truck, and over the past several days my neighbors have often seen me leaving the apartment with a teetering stack of boxes. They could very easily believe that we snuffed the ConEd guy and have been offloading the body piece by piece.

[Note to the NSA Blog Monitor who might have stumbled across this post: No ConEd operatives have been harmed. It would be impossible, since lately the company has decided to cut costs by abandoning its meter-reader scheme in favor of sending estimated bills to me and my neighbors and complaining that no one in the entire building is ever home.]

It's a new, uncongested day. Remember that line from Glengarry Glen Ross, "You ever take a dump, made you feel like you just slept for twelve hours?" I feel like I've been out for three days.