Things That Just Make Sense

I have a long-time friend who volunteered several years ago to help me declutter my attic. We had generations of stuff up there – literally. My husband’s grandparents, his parents, and our own junk plus stuff we are “saving” for our adult son.
So, I was honored that she volunteered to help with this horrible and time-intensive task (three flights of stairs up, drag stuff down three flights of stairs, pile it up, make that trip about 25 more times, then start sorting the paraphernalia in the boxes….you get the idea). Honored, but not excited.
You see, my friend is a hoarder. Not only that, she is a messy hoarder. Things aren’t in neatly labeled boxes or tubs, stacked in her basement or garage. No, no, they are in bags of all material, in open stacks, piled on top of each other and all over the place. On countertops, on tables, jammed in closets and on bookshelves bowed in the middle from the weight. You can’t walk through her basement except in a tiny path from one end to the other. You can’t get a car in her garage. There’s just too much stuff. Too. Much. Stuff.
So I had this awful feeling that to accept her help would mean she would put my junk into her car and pile it all over the place at her house. Having her help is like sending a match to put out a fire.
I’ve observed similar contradictory behavior in my life. It’s usually amusing, and sometimes scary. A few years ago, we had a big snowfall. The person operating the snowplow that year opted to run the blade about two or three feet into our yard at the corner. We realize that snow plowing is a difficult job, but the intersection at our corner is the absolute widest in the county. You could have three or four cars turn around it a circle – side by side and simultaneously – and not touch any of the four corners. But the plow managed to carve up our corner and all the way up one side of our front yard. Gravel and dirt under the snow were piled up ten inches. We had to rake and reseed in the spring a fairly large portion.
So I took pictures and sent it to the county, merely asking for them to point out to their driver that it wasn’t necessary to go that deeply into a yard.
We heard nothing.
Well, until July. Then, I got an email stating that the supervisor had visited the “scene” and had found no damage to our yard.
Duh. After we raked and seeded and spring/summer had gone by, of course there was no “evidence of damage.” They sent someone to look at snow plow damage in July?
It reminded me of a great movie – Pillow Talk. In this movie Doris Day (an interior decorator) and Rock Hudson (a womanizing song-writer) share a party line. Let me digress to say if you know what a party line is, you’ve likely seen this movie and if you don’t know – you’ll have to google it.
At any rate, Doris can’t get a call in or out because Rock is always singing to some woman. So she complains to the phone company and they send an investigator out to see what Rock is doing. The phone company subsequently notifies Doris that her claim is unfounded. You know why?
Because they sent a woman investigator.
You don’t ask a hoarder to help you redd up. You don’t send a supervisor to observe snow plow damage in July. And you don’t send a woman to “investigate” a womanizer. At least not in the movies!