The Pit of Despair

Westley: Where am I? Albino: [whispering harshly] THE PIT OF DESPAIR! DON'T EVEN THINK— [He coughs up a hairball and proceeds calmly.] Albino: Don't even think of trying to escape. If anybody can think of the rest of the quote, let me know. I seem to remember something about the walls being much too thick, and the monk and Humperdink having the only key. I could be wrong, though. But I make this reference because I have ESCAPED from the Pit of Despair, or at the very least survived, and I would like to share with you the harrowing journey. For harrowing it was indeed, and not for the faint of heart. I am referring, of course, to my house. Yes, I know, not many people refer to their place of residence as the Pit of Despair, but after getting this place ready to sell, it's the only name that fits. I even had to get moral support from The Wiz to talk me through it instead of running screaming into the night. Of course, eventually I would have had to face the Fire Swamp (a.k.a, The Playroom), so I resigned myself to my fate of battling through cleaning this place. And I'm going to share with you, dear readers, what I found along the way. Keep in mind I am not exaggerating. Oh, how I wish I were. I found, first of all, an old wedding card. Not so unusual, right? After all, people keep cards all the time. Cards are usually a lovely momento of a beautiful occasion, selected carefully and inscribed with some happy thought about marital bliss. This card was no different, except that it was inscribed "Dear Marcy and Jason...." Um, I don't know if y'all have picked up on this, but my name is Heather and my husband's name is Nate. You know what this means, don't you? It means that THIS CARD WAS GIVEN TO US BY MISTAKE AND I HAVE DRAGGED IT ACROSS THE COUNTRY FOR ALMOST 7 YEARS! We have moved 8 TIMES in our marriage, and apparantly, this card has come with us every time. What in the holy name of FlyLady is UP WITH THAT??!! I found 4 Hot Wheels cars under the bed, as well as 2 water bottles, a sippy cup, and about 50 pieces of legos. No, sadly, I'm not taking about Jacob's bed, I'm taking about MY bed. I guess when I was trying to figure out where all our legos went I didn't bother to look there. Oh, and the dust animals I found under there...well, let's just say the ROUS's have nothin' on them. (Ok, that was in fact an exagerration, but not by much. I wasn't actually physically attacked by any of the dust, although I was glad I found a small package of Kleenex under there, too. It definitely came in handy.) I have found seed packets that apparantly never made it into our garden last year. Hmm, those radishes might have been good. Do seeds ever go bad? I have found scraps of fabric from projects I completed years ago. Who am I kidding? Like I'm ever going to make scrunchies that match the table runner I made in my beginners sewing class 3 years ago, which, by the way, is so lopsided and ugly that I never use it anyway. As I went through my house, I continually asked myself this question: WHY AM I KEEPING ALL THIS CRAP? Anyway, I've escaped (pretty much. I really do have to tackle the playroom. I might have to call in professional reinforcements for the carpet down there, though. How can one kid make things so unbelievably gross? What do y'all do who have more than one kid? Use a shovel?). We are really almost there, ready to have complete strangers poke around our house and decided if they could stand to live here. Anybody want to buy a house? Oh, and Marcy and Jason, if you are reading, I, um, have a card for you from some friends of yours. Sorry it's a little late. FYI. For more information about what else you can find under the bed, Exponent II is discussing this very topic. No poaching, pure coincidence, I swear. I know, it's acutally a rather freaky coincidence that we are talking about the indifferentiated crap that fills our lives, but, there you go.