Stor­age is no more. I spent all day yes­ter­day out in that dusty, cobweb-ridden stor­age unit in Pleas­antville. I picked up H, and we drove out there in the rented Uhaul ready to clear it out and cart it to the dump. Of course, as soon as he saw his own stuff out there, he changed his tune and decided to keep all of it. I sorted through the mess to find the few things that I wanted to keep, and after a cou­ple of hours, we had the truck full, the space empty, and the account closed.

We drove back to Oak­town to drop off his stuff, which took way longer than I wanted because he was insis­tent on orga­niz­ing and arrang­ing as we brought stuff in. All I wanted to do was drop and run. The dump in SF closed around 5 p.m., I had to return the truck by 5 p.m. or suf­fer a $250 over­age charge, it was already 2 p.m., and we still had Bay Bridge traf­fic to deal with. It is his way to change his mind mid­stream. The epit­ome of ADD. As it was, I had to leave my stuff at his place to pick it up later because I wouldn’t have had time to drive home, drop it off, then drive across town to drop the truck off. I never would have made it in time.

Back in the truck  —  he offered to help me unload at the dump, which sounds dirty, but it isn’t, trust  —  we headed over the bridge and to the SF dump. We got there and started unload­ing every­thing. The guys there swarmed over the stuff, dig­ging through boxes, read­ing old cards and let­ters. H seemed a lit­tle upset about the whole thing, while I was very happy to purge the junk from my life. There was so much unnec­es­sary detri­tus from my past hid­den out in that dirty old hole that even I for­got about it. My retainer was stuck in a box. The thing that I got after I got my braces off! When I was fuck­ing six­teen years old! What the fuck was I hold­ing on to that for? Please!! Jesus on the cross!! And H had the nerve to ask me (more than once) if I was sure I wanted to part with this stuff. Are you fuck­ing kid­ding me? I’d burn the shit down if I could. Ugh.

I made it out of there, paid for the dumpage, drove to the Uhaul cen­ter, dropped the truck off, and was fin­ished by 4:15 p.m. That was cut­ting it close, but it was over. I’ll never have to do that again.

All in all, I saved two small boxes of books, most of them French books I will use later on and my hard­cover Anne Rice nov­els, one pair of shoes, and my bag of mix­tapes through which I will dili­gently sort in the com­ing weeks and dis­card, bag and all. I just want to hear them all once more before con­demn­ing them to the refuse for­ever. Nos­tal­gia got me just a lit­tle bit, I will admit.

This was one of the most expen­sive learn­ing expe­ri­ences I’ve had so far. In the twelve years I’ve had a stor­age unit, I’ve spent uncounted thou­sands of dol­lars to keep junk that I was too lazy to throw away. Thou­sands. Tens of thou­sands. The last charge I had from these peo­ple counted out at $130. Do the math over twelve years. That adds up to a pretty nice car, you know? Yes­ter­day alone cost me just around $400. I’m unem­ployed. I don’t have that kind of money to throw around!

This was a seri­ous les­son in hoard­ing. Don’t do it! I will get on my soap­box about this. I feel so strongly about this, I almost feel that there should be a law against these pub­lic stor­age places. No joke. If you don’t have space for it, get rid of it. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. If you don’t use it, get rid of it. A paid stor­age unit is never the answer.

It’s over. No regrets. No remorse. It’s over. Les­son learned. Let’s move on.