Paring Down Part 2: Hilary’s Story
Continued from Part 1 – Denise’s Story
Robbie, Charger and I waved goodbye to Mom and Dad, with our car loaded with items that were hopefully going to a good home. I returned home, not really feeling rushed to figure out where everything was going to go, but quickly decided most of it was going to stay in the car until I figured it out. No point in loading it all in to my house.
A few days after I got home I started to notice something in the seats in my car. It took me a moment to realize they were mouse poops.
We had brought home a “mountain” mouse to our “suburb” house! Now I needed to pick up the pace and get these things out of my car!
The first thing I did was take out the huge roll of acoustic insulation. This seemed to be the most likely place a mouse would be hiding. I rolled it all the way down my driveway but the only thing I found inside of it was a pile of nuts. So that was set aside. Then I said to myself, said I, where could I possibly donate all of this equipment of dads? Who would want this? And I immediately did a quick search on local ham radio clubs and found the local club was meeting the next day at the senior center.
After a nice elderly lady, a resident at the center, led me up and down all the halls trying to find the meeting room, and certainly passing the main entrance again at some point during the search, we found a room that was definitely ham radio guys. I told them the back of my car was loaded with stuff and they could come take what they wanted. I opened the back of the minivan, ready for them to unload all this cool stuff I had!
They “oohed” and “aahed.” And they eventually walked off with 2-3 very small boxes, no bigger than shoe boxes. Their final words, with a chuckle, were “It’s too bad Mike isn’t here, he would like this stuff.” They told me to wait 5 minutes before I leave incase Mike showed up. A few minutes later Mike came out to my car.
Again Mike did lots of “oohing” and “aahing.” He started to take things out and was putting them on the ground. I wasn’t sure what he was up to, so I tentatively said “If you want you can pull your car right up.” “Great idea!” he said. And then a most amazing thing happened. One by one he placed every single item in to his car.
He said things like “This can emit a toxic gas” as he put the item in his car. Or “Your dad must have been in the signal corp.” or “My wife is going to kill me!”
Sometimes I would say something like “oh that box is just glass for framing pictures” to which he would reply “I might be able to use that!” and put it in his car. He asked “Is this towing hitch for your car?” “No, it’s up for grabs” and he tossed it in his car. Every single last item went. When he said “you know, if I only use 20% of this stuff then it’s worth it”
That’s when I realized, I just gave all of that stuff back to “my dad.”
Someday his kids will have to clean out his storage area and find a home for all of that good stuff!
The only question that remained was if he also took the mouse. Lo and behold a few days later I see it run across the floor of my car. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I placed a mouse trap with peanut butter in my car overnight. That was the end of the mouse and I had successfully gotten everything out of my car. Until the next time I go out to visit and sit in the crawlspace with my dad!
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That’s a beautiful story. Thanks for finding a nice home for everything, you did a great job! Although I doubt the mouse would agree 😉