Castaways

When I first got the house, I bought the old furniture of a co-worker with a couple of hundred bucks after she'd decided to leave the well-paying world of rural journalism for the drudgery of a Masters program in Seattle.

Not much had made the move from Charleston to Pinch and even after I bought the loveseat and chairs, the place seemed kind of empty. There was a lot of space to fill.

A few months later, I came into a little bit of money --not a lot of money --but a little. It was enough to pay my taxes, put three tires and new brakes on my recently purchased car, go on one truly epic grocery store spree (It was the only time in my life when I loaded a grocery cart and didn't think about whether I had enough in my account to cover it. We ate like princes --for a couple of days) and it bought some furniture.

It paid for a new mattress and box springs, a big heavy desk where I thought I'd finish one of my novels and an old couch I got from Habitat for Humanity.

I used the mattress and box springs every day, but nobody much liked the couch. It sat in the den, near the fireplace. Only the dogs liked to sit on it and then one of them took it in her head to occasionally water it, perhaps thinking it might grow into a sectional, and nobody wanted to sit on it.

The desk I filled with unimportant papers, various power cords to things I probably don't still own and other crap I couldn't figure out what else to do. A friend gave me a desktop computer, after I complained that I couldn't do much with this wonky, buggy laptop I'm writing on right now.

I plugged the desktop in, loaded it up with software and made a conscious effort not to hook it up to the internet: no distractions. It was simply going to be something I wrote on.

I turned it on two or three times and then buried the thing under Christmas stockings, record albums and a signed sketch by Jaime Hernandez.

As soon as I decided to put the house up on the market, I started thinking about what sort of place I'd likely find myself living in next.

Smaller.

The house is basically three bedrooms, two baths, a decent sized living room, a fairly spacious eat-in kitchen and a back room with the fireplace that's almost 1/3 the size of the rest of the place.

In another life, I imagined that room could have been used for entertaining. I might have put in a bar, a liquor cabinet and a table for poker games or other more nerdly pursuits. I might have picked up a pinball machine and got a jukebox.

I certainly thought about that.

Two doors lead from the room to the yard on one side and a covered patio on the other.

I talked about having friends up for cookouts a hundred times, but that never happened. I never invited anyone over. I can't say why.

Anyway, the next space I'll likely be in will probably be much smaller. Basic economics suggest that's likely. There won't be room for a funny smelling couch that nobody wants to sit on or a desk nobody ever writes on.

With a little help and quite a bit of swearing, I got those bulky, clunky and heavy things down the hill to the curb. The hardest part wasn't moving them it turned out, but the parting with them.

I am ever worrying about money, and I paid good money for those things, money I could have spent on things I needed more or things I might have used better. I considered how much money I'd blown trying to make this place fit me.

So much money wasted...

I've learned. My next place won't be like that.