Detritus, Literal and Figurative
A sudden subterranean aquatic event has caused us to empty out our basement, thwarting our malign intentions of having our son do it after we croak. We awoke Tuesday morning to the event in progress, and today (Wednesday) a salvage crew from a firm referred by our insurance company arrived to inventory damages and take stuff offsite to be cleaned and returned to us, if salvageable.
We’ve lived in the house since New Year’s Eve of 1974, so you can probably see where this is going. We substantially remodeled in 1981, and stored the house’s then-contents, of course, in the basement. In retrospect, it’s amazing how much stuff just never made it upstairs again.
I practice my trumpet down there, and have been subliminally aware that the space required to erect my music stand and assume a position at a distance befitting my age-appropriate focal length was becoming problematic. It was easy to espy a couple boxes and assume (unfairly, as it turned out) that it was due to our son’s appetite for parental self-storage, and feel momentarily absolved.
The salvage crew arrived shortly after 8am, and we were stunned to learn that the entire basement needed to be cleared out in order to observe their protocols. So began a process of speed-dating with 43 years of my past, wherein we had split-seconds to make keep-or-toss choices as the patient, but certainly judging, young folks held trash bags waiting for our binary decisions. If we had engaged this task ourselves, we would certainly have spent days or weeks agonizing over every talisman, but with dollars instead of sand pouring relentlessly through the hourglass, we had the place empty in just about 6 hours.
It was really like watching a twitchy fast-forward home movie of our lives. An artifact would surface, and an associated memory would flash in my brain, but just as suddenly it would go blank, as there was no time to linger.
I reflect back on the day with an odd sort of sense of accomplishment, which tends to overshadow the gut-wrenching trauma of awakening on Tuesday. What will keep me awake tonight? Wondering if we saved Skeletor’s Castle. I remember seeing it behind something, but I was not the final arbiter.
Click to engorge
We did manage to save Mr. Bunny, the constant companion of our young son. Mr. Bunny is a survivor of decades, including an emergency FedEx trip from Ohio to Seattle over a grueling 48 hours of absence.
I’m glad to see another post here, but sorry its genesis was such an unpleasant event. A forced recollection of 43 years, coupled with a requirement to make split-second decisions about which memory-triggers to keep and which to abandon, should be sufficient punishment to atone for all (or almost all) of your transgressions over the years. I’m happy that Mr. Bunny survived. May I assume the subterranean aquatic event was the sudden discovery of an artesian spring in your basement?
This sounds like the opening chapter of your new book about decluttering. The title will have a pun on “bin” at some point, that’s all I’ve got, but I can see it. The Six-Hour Purge Under Pressure (subtitle).
And it’s also the nightmare scenario for those of us with basements that aren’t used for living. If something goes wrong down there, it can be a long time before we find out.
Purging is hard enough under any circumstances, but having a basement filled with stuff and an emergency certainly sounds like a reason to start. Eeek!
Oh, Phil! That’s a “worst nightmare” for sure. So sorry you had to go through all that — literally go through everything, and endure the forced nature of the perusal. What a thing. The salvaging of Mr. Bunny is a bright spot for sure. But, are we certain that your son had nothing to do with the sudden onset of the issue? That five hour investment of your time and Mrs. P’s could easily equate to five days of his on down the road. Inheriting a clean basement someday? Priceless!
John (and all) - it was a Fountain of Youth, in a way. No, the toilet in the downstairs bathroom ran for most of a night, and overwhelmed our side sewer. While I’m certain it was almost totally clean water (cat 1), the restoration folks called it a Cat 3, and necessitated tearing out the bathroom floor, the aformentioned total purge, etc.
Chuck - there’s still plenty of stuff to clear out around here before I can look my kid in the eye. I’ll hire a literary agent to sequence the plot to yield enough chapters. At your suggestion, it will at some point feature a loony “bin”.
Liz - Phil, to universe: Thanks! I needed that!
Carroll - that is a Hannity-esque conspiracy theory!
I’d almost say I’d like something like that to happen to kiss my decluttering butt into action! But no, I’d really rather not deal with such trauma. Hope the repair goes smoothly and that you enjoy a new lease of basement life very soon.
Not “kiss”, I meant “kick”!
Wriggle all you want to there.