Where’s My Stuff?

I've been married over 25 years now, but I was a bachelor for quite a while before I got married. During the time I was a bachelor and living on my own, roaming the countryside, I accumulated lots of stuff. Guy stuff, useful important stuff, MY STUFF.

About a few months after marriage and our first apartment, I noticed that my stuff had dwindled down to what could fit into a spare bed room. That was OK cause I know all those flowers and candles and pictures and furniture was more important than my stuff.  But hey, at least I knew where to find it.  "Honey where's my fly rod?" "Did you look in your room?" Sure enough, there it was.

As time went by we bought homes, had kids, and it didn't take long for my room of stuff to have flowers and other girly things. Did I mention we had two daughters?  Even though the homes got bigger, it seems the space for my stuff kept getting smaller and things kept disappearing.  Like, where did my reversible Casper College T-shirt go? One side was blue, it only had a couple holes and the other side was red, just a few paint spots.  Went to put it on one Saturday and poof, it was gone and nobody knew anything about it.  What happened to my 10 year collection of Mad Magazine?   Yep, gone! Coincidence? I think not.

So I went from having my own room of stuff to just a corner of a room with my stuff. Then the home computer came out. We got one, put it in a room and called it a computer room.  I thought, "Finally, a little more space for me and my stuff." Not two weeks after we got the computer, it had doilies and flowers and vases. Just what the hell are doilies anyway?

Our home now has two bathrooms (thank goodness I go to work at 4:30 a.m., it's the only time I can get in there), and when I am in either one of them, I have to fight hairspray cans, perfume bottles, eye make up, other things that I don't know what are and some things in there that scare me. That's why I have a dog to protect me when I go into the bathroom, but of course, the dog is a female too and sides with them.

So after 25 years of marriage and two daughters, this is what I have learned: my stuff, like a gamblers money, has no home.  Look in the trunk of my car and you will find my golf clubs, a few tools and the rest of my stuff.  This weekend, my wife and kids wanted to go visit the grandparents. Guess what they took my car?

Yep, so much for my stuff.