That’s what we’ve felt like for the last cuppla decades, and that’s the life of a naval family. Over the first 20 years we moved 11 times and lived in 18 different houses, and each time we moved there were packing boxes that we never quite got to the bottom of piling up in the garage. Not a particularly efficient way to live: Never mind the repeat purchase of rendundant power tools simply because we hadn’t a notion which box the original was lying in – and power tool technology has come such a long way over the years – the packing boxes do tend to add up in time, with the net effect that I haven’t parked a car in a garage since I was a lieutenant.
Which, no big deal, we’re off again in a year or two and what would be the point of it all? Anyway?
But it’s coming on six years we’ve been in Sandy Eggo this summer, and five years in the current crushing burden of debt, and it was far past time that we accustomed ourselves to the idea that we actually, you know: Live here. And maybe ought to act like it.
Now, my inadequacies in the domestic domain are more than compensated by the super-efficiency of the Hobbit in that same corner of the performance curve. For my own part, I could quite contentedly sit on the living room floor in my boxer shorts, surrounded by towering stacks of pizza boxes, Economist magazines and empty margarita pitchers but the lady says thank you, she’ll have none. For all that she runs a taut ship within the lifelines however, the garage has been officially labeled a no-woman’s land and her ability to maintain a serene moral equanimity in the face of the heaping chaos therein has always been a subject of curiousity bordering on fascination for me.
What’s the rush, after all these years we’d ask ourselves, and “maybe next weekend,” and off you’d go on other business entirely. But there’s always been a part of me that holds his manhood cheap that cannot park even one car in a three-car garage, and remembers with envy the wallboard my dear ol’ da had hanging in the garage, complete with outlines painted for to match the tools that hung there, a place for everything and all that.
Too, we live in what is euphemistically called a “gated community,” but which would better be described as a kind of police state wherein busybodies busy their bodies by noting who is, and is not, parking the requisite number of cars within their garages. It appears that according emergency orders for the preservation of the state community standards, two-car garages require at least one car to be parked within, and three-car garages must needs house two or else it’s stand tall in front of the Board of Directors and explain your failure to be a Team Player Who Is On Board For The Big Win, under the threat of paying to the tune of $500 (and where does that money go?) I can tell you from personal experience that standing in front of the board and carefully explaining that “this is horsesh!t” – while unassailable perhaps in logical terms – gets you nowhere with the neighbors, the fascist b@stards.
So shortly after hitting “Publish” on yesterday’s sturm und drang, it was off to the U-haul store for to get a pick-up truck and trailer combination. Avoid, gentle reader, if you can the end of the month when seeking a U-haul rental. Everyone who is moving from one place to t’other runs the clock out for that last weekend before shifting their digs and you’ll be in competition with the lot of ‘em.
The “eaches” of this our movement from garage to Goodwill to the Miramar landfill – where the old saw that “one man’s trash is another’s treasure” was vividly enacted in front of my disbelieving eyes – would be nearly as tedious to relate as it was to execute (and we were under a tight timeline too, the truck being reserved this morning by 1000). The sum and difference of it all is that we can park not merely one, but two cars (and a largish motorcycle) in our garage, and your correspondent breathes deeply the aroma of manly satisfaction.
We’re from someplace now.
My God, I am not alone in the world. There’s someone else with piles of unpacked boxes. You’ve moved 18 times? Damn! I’ve only moved once in 40 years and that was from SoHo in Manhattan to just across the river; a distance of maybe 8 miles. It was traumatic! I was a total wreck! You have made my day! My God, 18 times! I’m bowled over.
My friends constantly kid me about my mounds of stuff. (I do have some although they are hard to come by here in Doity Joisey. You dont want the kind that know which dumpsters still have room for a body), “But I can’t throw it away yet. I haven’t saved it long enough”. And, “I’m supposed to throw out that ball of pieces of string too short to save?” Tears my heart out by the roots.
Dare I mention dust? There are places here where there are foot prints in the foot prints. Women hate dust. I wonder why. Other women ya think? I don’t mind it. It’s kinda like “history”, you know?
Just so long as I can get to the Harley and to the refrigerator full of beers behind it; what else is important? (An old style church-key!)
At least you resisted the common solution of renting yet another storage/garage space and letting the jetsam rot for $200 a month.
Wooohooo!!! It’s finally done. Was it one or two Springs ago that you swore in this very space you were going to clear it during your month-long leave?
Seriously, congratulations on getting it all sorted out. You’re gonna love parking in the garage when Summer rolls around.
Lex, pray tell will the nosy neighbors allow you to change your oil on the property which you, not they built?
Perhaps your satellite dish needs to be tucked away in the backyard, too?
I need to avoid these kind of places in future home searches. I thought condo associations were bad enough…
Cap’n,
heh…. I still have a coupla boxes that need taking care of. It’s amazing what you can accumulate over the years
What’s most interesting is how, with all the moves, dets, etc, one can learn to live comfortably out of a sea bag and a butt pack.
My wife? She needs at least two sea bags per person for a weekend trip. Go figure.
Respects,
Sounds like corporate suit moves. Company notifies me on Friday to be there on Monday with appropriate wardrobe so I can hit the ground running. Wife comes later to look for housing. Wife returns home to supervise packing and loading which will include full trash can if she blinks. Company buys house so that’s a load off. Meanwhile I’m staying in nice hotels while wife takes care of logistics of moving from point A to point B. 30 years of this is no different than living in the same house for the same amount of time. Stuff accumulates and every available space is filled at each new place no matter that promotiions allow for bigger and better space. I’m surprised I’ve got the same wife I started with.
Ahhhh…. it feels so good to be home, doesn’t it!
[...] kind of like Lex’s garage, I [...]
Ah, the joys of community rules in SoCal and the wonderful neighbors that enforce those rules (for everyone’s good, of course).
We lived in a neighborhood that had a house paint committee. There were only 10 colors you could paint your house, all of them brown. No laundry lines were allowed and, one could only have their garage door open for 30 minutes at a time.
I swear the community gardeners had every tree listed in a big data base so they would know when to come by and turn it back into a lollipop again.
“For my own part, I could quite contentedly sit on the living room floor in my boxer shorts, surrounded by towering stacks of pizza boxes, Economist magazines and empty margarita pitchers… ”
The really scary part of this is the piles of Economist magazines. Really, Lex, that’s worse than admitting to a pile of Maxims, or somesuch.
Hey, what’s with this Spam Karma popup when I post comments now? Another bug, design feature, or complete surprise? Just thought you should know.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a three car garage. Does this mean that I’ve led a deprived life to date?
Lex – so does this mean you and the family are putting down roots? Must feel a little strange – but welcome home.
Care to come east to New England and effect the same miracle on my attic???
Very much enjoy your blog, sir. Beautifully written. First time, I feel the need to comment but this little tidbit just begs the question:
“which would better be described as a kind of police state…”
And yet you moved there and have stayed there for almost 6 years, why?
Is everything else in the area that much worse? A willing sacrifice for the good of the children ( good schools, what have you, nearby )? Wife likes it that way and she decides that kind of thing, now that you’re settled?
“Wife likes it that way and she decides that kind of thing, now that you?
“Wife likes it that way and she decides that kind of thing, now that you’re settled?”
I can tell you that this wife didn’t like it that way one single bit and, no, the schools sucked too…
Every time this topic comes up I re-run the tapes and try, once again, to understand why people seem to relish living under these circumstances. The only answer we came up with is that some people like uniformity; it makes them feel secure. All cars in the garage, all houses painted brown (or some variation of peach), all laundry out of sight, all doors closed.
Here’s a funny thing; one Saturday night my husband and I were cleaning out the fish tank, kids in bed, when the door bell rang. It was a bunch of drunk neighbors who had in tow with them the former owners of our home. They wanted to come in and look around. We let them. The former owners were terribly disappointed that we had demolished their hot tub (never mind that the heater actually erupted in flames while the kids were in it one day). It turns out that there were all kinds of parties that took place in our home (while the garage doors were closed in our brown painted home). The male owner of our home ran off with the female from the house next door. So much for societal regulations…
After the drunken 60 somethings left, I turned to my husband and said “something is wrong with this picture”…
Well, thanks, ck. As to your questions, well – it really is a nice house, our immediate neighbors are swell, and there are amenities: A 9-hole pitch and putt, tennis courts, swimming pools, etc. Good school system, the kids have friends in the area, it’s relatively safe and after a while it’s nice to have something of your own without changing it out every couple of years.
The downside of course is the fact that there do tend to be meddlesome people in the world, and these such tend to both be empowered by and attracted to silly affectations and trappings of power. Like membership in the home owner’s association.
Just remember, it doesn’t get any better once your retire … just longer between moves and the stuff really piles up then!
Just think, once the kidlings grow up (supposedly) and move on with their families (hopefully), then you have their leftovers to deal with.
It’s NEVERENDING, I swear!
Enjoy the clean garage while it lasts — in our case, about one to two months.
Babs Says:
Lex Says:
I think some people just feel the need to tell other people how to run their lives. Makes them feel important or something. Deep psychological feelings of inadequacy. Or something.
I’m kinda conflicted in my mind here. Back when I was attending church regularly I refrained from asking the other congregants where they lived, being afraid they’d admit to living in a “gated community”, whereupon I would no longer be in communion with such un-neighborly folks.
But then there are some otherwise nice folks who live in those places. WHY!!!
Then there are the public-access nabes with just as many restrictions and covenants.
Not to mention zoning codes enforced by anonymous denunciation, as is done where I live.
I mean, in a rational world, restrictions on what you can do with your property reduce its value, not increase it. Right?
Ok, yah, I know, the real estate market is among the least rational, at the consumer level, anyway.
My theory about that is, that the majority of wimmen are sexually excited by houses and are the deciders in house-buying decisions here and now. Wimmen are also the traditional enforcers of social standards. Add those together, and we get what we have.
There’s a bit of a tale to tell there, JTG, and you have hit it on the button: The Hobbit contrived to purchase a house while I was at sea, keeping the world safe for democrats. Although we had been shopping the neighborhoods (and although I’d never fancied myself the ‘gated community’ type, not least because the monthly assn dues could, if applied against a 30-year mortgate, either result in a better house or a quicker re-payment) I was nevertheless suprised to discover that she could obligate your correspondent to such a huge financial liability without himself, you know: Being there. For it.
What was done was done, and it’s a lovely place to live. Apart from the HOA. And them speedbumps.
For those who don’t fully appreciate the gated community lifestyle, check out this example from somewhere in Florida (names are changed to protect the guilty & innocent alike):
http://widelawns.blogspot.com
The general power of attorney is a dangerous thing.
Oh, Lex, you have such a nice bike, I betcha you could have fun jumping the bumps.
Or go around them on the neighbors’s yards. But that would be rude, and conduct unbecoming, and you should be ashamed of yourself, a man of your age…etc….
Dammit, I intend to stay 10 years old, in my head, for the rest of my life. Externally, I’ll continue to act like a grownup.
Well, I *try* to act like a grownup.
Yep, it’s all about the property values
Shipmates,
I tell you this, that there are still MANY advantages to renting the house vice buying it. True, I have paid for my house once over, but when something breaks, I can call the landlord and he comes forth to fix it.
Everything comes down to choices. Everything comes down to trade-offs, compromise.
My rent is roughly equal to what a mortgage payment here would be, the tradeoff being tht, unlike a mortgage, I can walk away from this house without any credit risk. True, I recoup no equity through resale, but I also don’t have all the lawyers involved with mortgages, title searches, etc.
I have often thought about owning land, and a house, but when I think of how short a man’s life really is, and that, regardless of the deed, we really only rent the land for a relatively short while, I ask myself, why?
That’s not a strike against those who own land and homes, just an observation. My own, and no one else’s.
I may not leave a home to my kids, but I will leave them a legacy of honour, and duty faithfully served. I think that’s pretty good, considering.
Respects,