Stuff

Editor’s note. One of our first bloggers, when MCP started two years ago, was Craig Convissor. Life happens and people change direction. But, we are happy to have Craig back on board. 

Off Broadway. A blog by Craig Convissor. 

Whenever I’m in doubt, I pull out my black T-shirt with WWGCD in large block letters. It comforts me and gives me direction. I don’t rely on it for the big earth-moving decisions which force our focus from the ordinary world to the sublime: divorce, death, etc. At least, not yet—I really haven’t had the need since I was given this shirt. I’m referring exactly to the ordinary decisions which make us pause and wonder what to do next.

George Carlin did a skit on Stuff—the Stuff which clutters our lives and overwhelms us at times. A whole industry has actually sprung up to help us deal with this problem: storage barns. George says that a house is just a cover for all our Stuff and if we didn’t have so much we wouldn’t even need a house. We’d just walk around all the time. When we get more Stuff, we buy bigger houses to store it in. And, of course, we have to lock it up, because our Stuff is valuable. When folks break into our home, they always take the most valuable Stuff and leave the 4th grade arithmetic papers behind.

And when we go to visit someone, we must decide which Stuff to take of all the Stuff we have. When we get there, they put us in a spare room which is filled with some dead guy’s Stuff and there isn’t any room for ours on the dresser. His Stuff is shit and our shit is STUFF!

Laurie and I are going on a walk-a-bout south and west of here soon and the predicament of what to take and what to leave behind is solidly upon us. Somehow, on our first trip in Latash, our popup camper, we managed quite well. Laurie assures me that, though I don’t recall, I was equally distressed then.

I know what George would do and armed with this inspiration, I know that we will pile our Stuff against the kitchen wall, start putting it in the appropriate sized boxes, stuff most of it in the van filling every nook and drive away, warmed with the assurance that we are on an adventure which will capture our total attention. We won’t have time to worry about our Stuff. If we forgot something, we’ll buy it. And when we return, we will have the added benefit of knowing what Stuff to get rid of out of the pile we left behind.

But in the meantime, I look at this mound of “necessities” and wish George were here to help me sort it out. At least, we’d have a few laughs at my expense.