Closets Full of Stuff

Stuff: To fill too full; cram; overload. 1

I'm still grooving on the differences between cultures and how people accept what they do or do not have. Stuff, stuff, stuff, oh how I need thee, wondrous stuff! That's Shakespeare, I think, or part of an exchange between Beowulf and Grendel, or the concluding couplet in a poem by Lord Byron. The question I have to ask myself is: What did I get for my birthday last year? Beats the hell out of me. Several wrinkles and a few new aches and pains, that's for sure, and maybe a pink golf shirt that didn't fit but I was too lazy to return. Whatever I got is probably in the basement already, or I've lost or broken it, or tired of its fleeting allure.

Alfredo from Belize didn't have any air conditioning in his garage like home. He had just gotten a couple of ceiling fans in the last year. He was pretty impressed with those fans. He sounded like a yuppie breaking down all of the features on his new BMW. Mind you we are talking about heat and humidity that had teeth and claws and stalked the night like a angry warlock. I slept standing up in front of the air conditioner with a bag of ice cubes on my head, my feet in a bucket of dry ice, and still bitched about how hot it was.

I try to avoid any "When I was growing up" comments because it makes me sound older than I already am, which is older than I ever thought I'd be considering my garbage disposal like approach to drug and alcohol consumption. I just threw it down my gullet and assumed the whirling metal tines would take care of it. My motto was: "Live fast - die young - leave a bloated and unattractive corpse." That being said, when I was growing up our house didn't have air conditioning and I slept on the second floor, in the Cincinnati heat and humidity. I assume it was not very comfortable. I don't recall feeling that I was being abused in some horrible way. It was hot. I fell asleep and took a shower when I got up. Now, if I didn't have air conditioning in my second floor bedroom, I'd make it sound like I was being tortured in a Medieval dungeon.

Careful with that stuff.