(Note: This was previously published in the Penticton Herald in 2002 as part of my weekly “Kev’s Korner” column.)
I’ve been thinking lately that if you truly want to know someone, look not deeply into his or her eyes – look carefully into their garage.
My garage has been much on my mind recently. I’m coming up on the third anniversary of moving into my much-loved townhouse. It’s the first place I’ve lived that has been entirely mine – from the doorknobs to the furnace vents in the roof that clang loudly when it’s windy. (OK, well, given that I’m only three years into the mortgage, I probably just own the doorknobs, and the bank owns everything else up to the clangy vents.)
And, as this townhouse is entirely mine, it’s become subject to the vagaries of my personality. Nowhere is this more apparent than in my garage.
Though I had better intentions when I moved it, I’m afraid that my garage reveals I was the victim of “moving inertia”. You know, that tried-and-true law of nature that when you move into a new place, wherever you set something is where it stays. I’d been careful in past moves, never putting anything down until I was sure it was where I wanted to have it for the foreseeable future. But, due to circumstances I won’t relate here, I was rather cavalier with this move, and set a number of boxes in the garage, all piled up against the back and both walls, that I promised myself I would go through “very soon”.
Three years later, those boxes are still there, and they’ve been joined by other odds and ends that I couldn’t find a place for in the house – mostly more boxes. Cleaning the garage has been on my to-do list every weekend since moving in, and I always seem to find something else that has a higher priority.
Of course, I could console myself by saying that everyone’s garage hides a multitude of sins, but that’s not possible living in my neighborhood. You see, there seems to be something of a garage fetish amongst my neighbors, one that compels them to the utmost standards of neatness and order for the stuff stored around their cars.
Now, I like my neighbors. They’re great people. (And, I’m not saying this just because I want to feel safe in my own home after this is published). They’re decent folks that like a chat by the mailbox now and again, or who will take a package for you when the FedEx guy comes and you’re not at home. Good folks.
But, they’ve really taken this garage thing to the limit. Some have purchased elaborate shelf and hanger systems (systems!) on which to place their stuff. Others have devised interesting ways to hang ladders, hoses, and other things from the walls and ceilings. Some, take a more minimalist approach, and have nothing in their garages at all, save for their cars, and a very well-swept floor.
And, well, compared to theirs, my garage really is the skid row of the development. I cringe when I have to open the door with people around to observe, especially those with the well-kept garages. I hear silent gasps of absolute shock at the willy-nilly pile of boxes and the unswept gravel that covers the floor.
And yes, it could be that I’m being just a tad sensitive. Well, I’m not. You see, my garage recently became the subject of much scrutiny in the neighborhood, and this quite proves my theory.
You see, in addition to my unclean garage, I’m rather an oddball in the neighborhood. I’m a twenty-something single guy living amongst, well, folks who are just a bit more settled than a twenty-something single guy living alone. And, to make matters worse, I work at home, and I don’t think many of them know what I do for a living. (I once told an ex-neighbor that I was a writer, and he responded by saying “Well, that Danielle Steele fella sure does do well for himself.”) So, living as I do without obvious means of support, I’m sure that some of them suspect me of running one of those pot grow-ops you see on the news. I live in quiet fear that one day my humidifier will get frisky, and the fogged windows will bring the police down on me in droves – summoned, no doubt, by one of my neighbors who has always suspected that there’s something funny going on here.
But I digress.
The reason I know that I’m judged by my garage is that one day a few months ago I looked out of my window to see a gathering of retired men, eyeing my closed garage door and looking, well, concerned.
I got dressed (no need to further the pot-head rumor by coming out at 2 p.m. still in my robe and slippers) and went out to greet the concerned gentlemen. After some errs and ahhhs and ummms, they rather quietly pointed to my garage door – in a way that made me think they had discovered something so obscene that they were embarrassed even to point it out. When I looked, I saw a long black mark down the middle of the door. To be honest, it wasn’t anything new. I’d seen it appear over the previous few weeks, and had made a mental note to check on it.
When I told them as much, I got a reaction somewhere between a startle and abject horror. They quickly offered to fix it, and told me to open the door and they would see what was wrong. So, I did, exposing all my boxes to their delicate sensibilities. They handled the shock rather well, I think. The long black mark probably prepared them for the evils that lurked within.
And, so, whatever was causing the long black mark was fixed. Not really knowing how to get rid of it, I left it, thinking the rain or snow would wash it away. It’s still there a bit, but faint. Yet, whenever I pass one of the men who fixed my door, they invariably ask if the slight smudge might mean that the problem has returned. It puts a spring in my step for the rest of the day to see the concern that comes into their eyes when I tell them that I haven’t gotten around to removing all of it yet.
It probably won’t surprise you to find out that these men have the tidiest, most ordered garages in the entire neighborhood. And this is why I think there’s something to my theory about garages and personality. Because, though I have poked a little fun at their expense, I actually really admire these men, who work tirelessly in the neighborhood, doing odd jobs that wouldn’t get done if they didn’t have the time and skills to spare. And, they’re always happy about it. Content, even. They seem to have ordered lives that resemble their well-kept garages.
Now, I really don’t know if this is true. They might have hideously angst-filled lives that would curl your hair just to think about. But, I doubt it. Because, you see, just knowing that my mess of a garage lurks just outside the door always adds just a bit of, well, disquiet to my day. Whenever I pass through it, the ever-present critics in my head bemoan its state. They anguish over how long I’ve let it be like this. They criticize and nit-pick and just take every opportunity that comes with seeing the garage to beat up on me. And, to be honest, I let them. Sometimes it’s easier to live with what you know, than to change it.
But, I’ve been bolstered by these men in my neighborhood, and a date has been set for a mass cleaning of my garage. It will be hard. It will be dirty. I will probably hate it.
But it will be done.