Simplify your life; get rid of that garage

Lots of folks are emptying out that garage, pulling out last year’s tools to shape up their lawns and doing general cleanup around the house and yard for the spring.

Well, maybe around your house and yard; unfortunately my husband and I are the type of people who are so inept at anything remotely connected to a habitat, we probably shouldn’t even own a house, which technically the bank would probably agree.

But it is that time of the year when the weather is warm enough to take a walk around the property and see what needs to be repaired, replaced, discarded or in desperation, moved to your neighbor’s side of the property line, naturally under cover of darkness. For some of us, after careful observation, many measurements and scientific consultation, it comes down to just sticking a For Sale sign out front; the winter is never kind to homes.

After a mean season of cold temperatures, Mother Nature’s wrath can only mean one thing, calling a repairman. You can forget about all those helpful hints that are listed in magazines and on the internet. These articles are written by people who don’t own a home that is being held up by scotch tape, a couple of rotting beams and an entire family of ants that can trace its heritage back to the Mayflower. If you take a shovel and go two feet down, you more than likely will hit part of the Indian Ocean.

Most authors don’t even own a home, and most of their how-to articles are written by people who live in condos or penthouses, with doormen and 24-hour takeout menus next to the phone.

So the average home repair is going to be costly. Don’t kid yourself, you are eventually going to have to call a repairman, one whose name is Bubba if possible. I remember my evil brother had a friend who could repair anything. I never actually saw his face because he was always under a car fixing something that sounded like a part that fell off of a UFO. I used to visit him in the burn unit a lot, but I still couldn’t see what he looked like with all those bandages. Bubba was actually banned from all the chemistry labs in high schools within our ZIP code. Wherever he went, things just happened to blow up.

I grew up in a house where my father fixed everything anyway. It’s not that he had any expertise in this field, since his regular job had nothing to do with home repairs; he just fixed stuff.  We never had a cabinet door hanging off the hinges or a window that refused to shut. We never called a repairman either. If he couldn’t do it, it was always my uncle or another neighbor who would jump at the chance to come over and help; of course his only other alternative was to continue beating the rugs his wife had hung out on the clothesline for him to whack away the dust and debris.

So it’s very difficult to find yourself at the nearest home improvement center, wandering around pretending you know what you are looking for, only to end up locked out on the loading dock. It’s especially painful for us, since the only thing we’ve ever done there is have a key made for the front door.

To save face, I usually throw something in my cart that has no meaning at all in my life, like a sump pump, and then check out.

I tell you, the garage spells nothing but trouble. I haven’t been able to park my car in there since it was built. Things are always inside there festering, growing, hiding, mating, piling up and lord knows what else. Garageless is the way to go today. And let the bidding begin on your Bubba.