The Purging

by Kathy Roberts

Daniella the Domineering (AKA my wife), calls my space a “man cave.” Really, it’s just the back half of the garage that’s attached to the house. But it’s a space that she and our four daughters, Patrice the Playful (11 years old), Jacquelyn the Jester (13 years old), Gwen the Glum (Jacquelyn’s twin), and Suzanne the Skeptic (14 years old) will not enter. They wouldn’t dare.

Boxes divide the garage vertically. Nobody is allowed beyond them. Past the boxes is my workshop. My private space. The area where I keep my most prized and cherished possessions.

I was at a garage sale once and an old, hand-painted wooden sign caught my eye. It was jammed down the side of a cardboard box under the table. The box was full of all kinds of odds and ends that were either too badly broken or chipped to sell.

The sign read … VO giRLS  ALOWD! Part of the N was missing. Some boy had probably painted it for his clubhouse or fort. The lady let me have it for free. I stuck it on the top box by the entrance to my half-a-man-cave to keep the other members of my family out.

The rest of the garage was for storage and seasonal things – winter gear, a seven foot Christmas tree, a canoe, two kayaks and pool equipment. The garage wasn’t heated but I was the only one who spent any time out there anyway so it didn’t matter.

Some people (including my wife and daughters) might think that my secret stash is nothing but a pile of junk. But they’re wrong. To me it’s all pretty valuable. For instance, I was picking over a table at a garage sale one day when I found a little Hula dancer with a grass skirt, the kind you put on your car dash-board and it jiggles when you swerve or take corners. It said Honolulu Honey on the dancer’s base. The sticker said $1.00. I offered the old guy behind the table 50 cents for it.

“Well…I dunno,” he said – one hand rubbing the whiskers his razor had missed.

“It’s my daughter’s. It has a lot of sentimental value.”

“Hmm,” I said. “I’ve never been to Honolulu. It would mean a lot to me.” He let me have it for 50 cents.

It wasn’t just collectibles (like the hula dancer) I was interested in. Last winter, I came across an electric space heater. It didn’t work perfectly. It got way too hot, fast and would shut off until the air was frigid. Then the whole cycle would start again. I was meaning to take it all apart and fix it but in the meantime it was fine.

And a few months ago, I found a plastic thing that screwed into an existing light socket and had an outlet as well as second socket. I knew it would be perfect for my space. The extra outlet would mean I could plug in that old heater, and keep the garage warm now that fall had arrived. That meant I could stay out there longer and enjoy my collection of valuable articles.

Even with a workbench and assorted tools and gadgets, it still didn’t feel like a man-cave though. It felt more like a collector’s cave of wonders.

I’m an accountant's assistant. My wife says I’m a bean counter – whatever! Anyway, the work isn’t too exciting but it’s a living and I only work Monday to Friday. I live for Saturday. Actually, I live for garage sales. People sell all kinds of really neat items for ridiculously low prices. I can usually haggle the price down but that’s only part of the fun. I really like delving through boxes of knick-knacks, finding interesting artifacts and imaging the story behind them. And I like fixing things. So when I see well-used treasures at garage sales, I know I can fix them and make them useful again.

I was looking for my hockey-puck/compass that I’d bought for a buck from a guy two blocks south of our neighbourhood. The dial points to goal, icing, save and slap-shot but he told me they were really north, east, south and west. I’d been rooting around for half an hour and couldn’t find it. Frustrated, I finally gave up and went back into the house. I found my wife in the living room working on a Sudoku puzzle.

“Honey, have you seen my hockey puck with the compass in the middle?”

“If it’s a garage sale thing, no I haven’t seen it.”

“I can’t find it anywhere.”

  “It’s not in here, Ted. That’s why you have a room in the garage. So you can keep all your junk out there and not in the house.”

Turning and grumbling to myself, I went back to my half-a-man-cave.

Later that afternoon, I was cleaning the gears of an old clock I’d taken apart when I heard the rest of the family out on the front lawn. They were talking excitedly amongst themselves.

“Ted,” called my wife. She sounded annoyed. “Come out and watch the solar eclipse with us.”

“Let me just finish this,” I hollered back.

“Dad, you’re going to miss it,” said Patrice. “It’s just starting.”

“Com’on Dad,” whined Jacquelyn. “Hurry up.”

  “Theodore Edward Dupuis,” yelled Daniella. “Come out here at once!”

“Coming …”

I left the garage, closing the door behind me, and went through the house and out the front door. The air was chilly after the heat of my cozy half-a-man-cave. I lifted my hoodie up and trudged over to join my family, dragging my feet as I went.  

This morning’s drizzle hadn’t dampened the girls’ spirits at all. They’d been talking about this eclipse for weeks. The weather had improved since this morning but it was still cold and damp. Not a day I wanted to be standing outside in, staring up at the sky. This eclipse was a once-in-ten-years thing, apparently. They said it was something not to be missed. I dunno… I’ve missed three of them so far and I don’t seem to be suffering for it. Gees, the things you do to keep the peace. My wife had even bought special glasses to protect our eyes. She handed me a pair.

I stood between her and Patrice. The cardboard glasses perched awkwardly on my nose, and I stared up at the sky. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I watched as the opaque shape of the moon gradually inched forward to block out the faint sun. Soon there was only a blurry ring where the sun had been. The ring broke and the opaque shape started to come out the other side.

“Is that it?” said Suzanne. “So the moon passed in front of the sun. Big deal!” She was clearly not impressed.

I was deflated too. I thought this was supposed to be a special eclipse. I didn’t see what the big deal was either. I hadn’t felt the earth move or anything.

We all stood there for a few more minutes, waiting – I guess – to see if anything else was going to happen. The air was a bit hazy but I didn’t think it had anything to do with the eclipse. More like the weather threatening rain. But then my nostrils were assaulted by the acrid smell of something burning. One of the girls screamed. I turned and saw bright red flames flicking out around the garage door.

“What the…?!?!?! Ahh! My precious valuables!”

“Call 911,” my wife barked at me as she bolted for the front door of the house.

The twins started after her. I shouted them back while I called 911 and gave the operator our details.

  A few seconds later Lolita, our Golden Labrador, came bounding out the front door, followed by Daniella with one arm firmly clamped over our white Persian cat and a sloshing goldfish bowl (complete with occupant) in the other hand.

“Nobody goes back in!” bellowed my wife.

I was surprised how quickly the fire-engines came. Within minutes of calling, we heard the sirens getting closer.

Whenever emergency vehicles arrive anywhere, a crowd of nosy spectators seems to appear. This was no exception. They grouped on the front lawn of the house across the street to watch, mumbling among themselves and trying to figure out who or what to blame for starting the fire.

Firefighters spilled out of three trucks, shouting to each other while they hooked hoses to hydrants and began the job of dousing the flames.

When the last embers were extinguished, the fire chief declared that the space heater had shorted out, sending sparks to the nearby oily rags. From there it was only a matter of seconds before the cardboard boxes and wooden crates that held my collection, caught fire. By the time it was all said and done, the only things left were the burned out hull of the canoe and the empty shell of the garage. Luckily, the fire hadn’t spread to the house. But my half-a-man-cave and its contents were history.

An hour later, we all went back into the kitchen to decompress. My wife opened all the windows and turned on the fans to get rid of the smoke smell. The girls went back to doing whatever teenage girls do.

The dog continued to be a dog. The cat decided she needed to do a thorough deep-clean from ear-tip to tail-tip. The plastic plant in the goldfish bowl got replanted in the gravel at the bottom and the fish resumed swimming circles around it.

I called the insurance company to report the fire. I neglected to tell them I’d bought the space heater at a garage sale or plugged in into a used outlet that I’d screwed into the light fixture. They didn’t ask and I didn’t tell.

The good news is that the insurance paid out and I used some of the money to buy one of those do-it-yourself sheds I got from a discount wholesale place. I built it at the back of the yard, well away from the house. It’s smaller than the space I had in the garage, but it’s a whole shed. And it’s ALL MINE! A real “man-cave.” It’s got electricity, a smoke detector that’s hard-wired into the house, a compostable toilet in the corner, and an intercom so I can call my wife, “if" I want to. It’s perfect. I can’t wait for garage sale season to start again in the spring so I can start rebuilding my collection of treasures.

The bad news is that I will never hear the end of Daniella’s lectures on the “dangers of hoarding all that junk.”