Warming Up

Turns out unpacking is like a shitty Christmas. You have a million presents to unwrap, but when you get them open you find that you already have one of those. And you’re supposed to be happy about it.

That would be a pretty good Hell actually, having to constantly wrap and then reopen everything that you ever owned in your life. “Hey pretty heavy-handed message about how possessing things in life was the least important thing, Satan.”

“Thanks mate. Heavy-handed is what we were going for. This is Hell. It's how we roll. It turns out people were more important than things. Who knew?”

For the moment I have just been unpacking kitchen things. The kitchen is more or less ready now. I know they said that the kitchen would take 3 weeks when they took on the job in March, but perfection takes time. And it will take a bit more time as there are still a few things to sort out. But I have to admit it looks pretty good. Or at least it did before I started unwrapping things and taking them out of boxes and scattering the paper that wrapped them on the floor. And it’s all very well to say that possessions are bad Satan (but why are you punishing me for being bad - I thought you were bad. Why aren’t you rewarding me for going against God’s plan. You fucking love God, you pussy), but how am I meant to cook food for my family without a pan? They’ll die and then this bold pronouncement that people are more important than things is going to look pretty stupid. Oh, you’re saying it’s OK to have a pan now then? And what about plates and cutlery and a table? Yeah, see the whole thing falls apart pretty quickly. Just let me know what is the acceptable amount of stuff to own that means I won’t be wrapping and unwrapping my own stuff for eternity in a big fire (won’t all the stuff burn up, including me? No? It’s not that kind of fire? What kind of fire is this fire? Sounds like it might just be a slightly too warm radiator to me).

I will concede to Satan that there was quite a lot of possessions I couldn’t justify having transported from one house to the next: my collection of M and S plastic forks, a single one-use chopstick, a broken corkscrew and bags full of stuff out of drawers that seems to have no purpose at all, but which I am still scared to throw away for fear that in two weeks time I will suddenly discover its incredibly important function.

But there’s hope in unpacking - perhaps this time we will work out the place that everything is supposed to go and keep it in that place. Perhaps we will have a mental inventory of all that we own and be properly organised. I am too scared to read back to my last move in the blog and see if I made such bold pronouncements then too.