I got up on this fine Saturday morning to the sound of chirping birds and buzzing bees. I thought to myself, "Wow, what a nice day. I want to enjoy this day." I had no plans but I could just tell from the moment I woke up that I would be pleased with the outcome.
A few minutes later I went upstairs to have breakfast out on the deck. The sun was shining, the moon was fading, and the neighbor's dog was barking. The peaceful calm surrounded me in an essence of glorifying beauty. I ate my buttered bagel with a slight hint of condescendancy.
After breakfast I glanced at the clock above the stove and saw the time. 10:42 AM. What a great start to the day. I was going to head downstairs and get dressed (I was still in my flowing blue robe) when my mother stopped me and gave me specific instructions.
She told me that because it was a Saturday and had nothing better to do, I was to clean my closet. Hmm, this doesn't sound too bad. I can clean my closet pretty quickly, I thought. I opened up my closet door and saw a big mess. Despite this, my hopes remained optimistic (when are hopes ever pessimistic???). I got started by picking up all the clothes and either hanging them up on the shelves or placing them carefully in the laundry basket for them to be laundered.
Once this was done I realized that the clothes were not the problem. The clothes were the secretive agent concealing the true mess that lay underneath. Multitudes of quotidian objects littered the floor, once underneath the uneven clothes. I saw three suitcases, two unopened Christmas presents, and a partridge in a pear tree.
I checked out the Christmas presents and saw two sweaters along with some cologne. I wish I would have had these when the weather was appropriate for that sort of attire. I suppose a walk-in closet has its disadvantages.
By the time I had the second layer of mess unearthed, it was already noon. I had spent over an hour on merely the floor of the closet alone. I quick checked over my work and noticed a large chest sitting underneath the second set of shelves. The lid of the chest was pushed up, as if filled with too much sports equipment. The excess matter was not round objects, however, but reams upon reams of school paper.
My chest wasn't quite this old.
I dragged out the chest and opened it up. Math homework from 5th grade came sliding off the top, having been held in place by the rusty top of the chest. I glanced at some of the problems. I wondered why I had decided to keep these papers for the past six years of my life. Did I honestly think I was going to look through math homework from years past? Was I expecting an ice age to dawn upon mankind, and that my ancient math papers could be used to fuel a dying fire? Maybe I was simply hoping that one day I would be famous, and that the general masses would be scrambling to get a hold of anything by me. Or perhaps these papers simply had sentimental value, which is often the case with math homework.
Despite what reasons I had back then for archiving my work from 10:00 to 10:45AM in 2004, I had to move on. I could not keep these seemingly extraneous papers for much longer. They had to go. I went upstairs to get the small white recycling bin and started the massacre. I threw the papers in the bin with a sigh of mixed emotions.
What if someday I become famous? People will not have access to my math homework from years past. I have a feeling most people could handle that. How many celebrities do you know who saved their math homework from fifth grade? In fact, maybe its a good thing I'm tossing it.
The end.
Old chest picture from http://www.worldofstock.com/slides/DRE1042.jpg.
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