Defying physics
It has been four days now.
Four days of shifting stuff and sorting through mounds of boxes, papers, drawers and other crap.
I have thrown away crate-loads of software on CDs, five and a quarter and three and a half inch floppies.
I actually found a copy of one of the earliest programs I wrote that was a full suite of stuff for designing cable television systems. I would love to see that again one last time but I don’t have a floppy reader any more. It went in the bin. I felt a bit sad about that.
I have also chucked out a tower PC, a laptop, several keyboards, a nest of mice [computer variety], a coffee machine and there is a sound system that’s next on the list. Before anyone says anything, the tower PC is fucked, the laptop is ancient and is also beyond repair, and all the mice are dead.
I’m taking a few minutes to just sit down and stop the head spinning. To say I was knackered would be a gross understatement. The only thing that keeps me going is the thought of a stiff whiskey or five when I stop for the day. Maybe I should have my snifters first thing in the morning? It would make me less cautious about discarding stuff?
But how am I defying physics, you ask?
Well, there are two huge sacks in the garden, the porch is half full and the living room is almost impassable with piles of stuff that to be kept [I haven’t worked out where it’s to be kept – that’s for another day]. Yet the room is just as cluttered. Somehow I have removed piles of stuff yet the room is still full.
How does that work?
You still had floppies??
Including 5 1/4???
I’m impressed. There’s people who don’t know what the “file/save” icon represents
Yup – a full tray [around 30 to 40] including full copies of Microsoft Works, Cobol and Fight Simulator 4. They date back to my first PC where I had actually installed a brand spanking up to date 3 1/2 drive as it wasn’t standard at the time. I even had a 40Mb hard drive when the standard at the time was around 20Mb.
You make me terribly nostalgic. Please stop.
It’s one of those unwritten laws, like sod’s law, that the amount of junk will expand to fill the available space.
You may be defying physics, but there are stronger laws in the universe…
I’m definitely defying physics. If I move a cubic meter of stuff to the living room, I should have a cubic meter of space in the back room? Wrong! The space has filled up again and the stuff I moved to the living room has somehow expanded to two cubic meters….
“Itâs one of those unwritten laws, like sodâs law, that the amount of junk will expand to fill the available space.”
It is written, lots of people have observed this phenomenon and spoken/written about it.
I phrase it thusly: “More space, more crap”
My favourite example is parents of friends when I was young, who had a barn in their back garden, left over from when the area was agricultural. All our friends who had something bulky they couldn’t squeeze into their rented flat would leave it at Papa Kohl “for the time being”. When the family moved out after twenty years, nobody knew whose all the sofas, bicycles, surfboards, furniture etc belonged to, so he burned it all (and no I don’t know how to burn a bicycle or a surf board). The fire raged for a fortnight. Nobody ever came to collect anything or noticed that it was gone.
It did cross my mind that it would be easier to set fire to the room, but there is a distinct possibility that the fire would spread to the rest of the house.
Can’t you just pack it all in tea-chests, leave them by the garage and wait til those lovable little travelling scamps nick them?
It sounds like a physical equivalent of Parkinson’s Law, where work expands to fill time. In your case, matter expands to fill space!
“Somehow I have removed piles of stuff yet the room is still full”
I experienced exactly the same thing a few months ago – worrying, isn’t it…
I do believe you’re going through the early stages of “downsizing”.
It’ll give you an idea of what you’ll need to do when the time comes to move into sheltered housing.
Otherwise just hope you go down with all flags flying. Then your beneficiaries can sort it out before flogging the mansion and splitting the proceeds.
If I downsized I would be living in a tent. The one problem with the Manor is that there is no storage room apart from the garage and the “office”. Both of those are at capacity so I have nowhere to move stuff. I’ll probably end up just piling it all into the garden or over the fence into the neighbour’s.
What you do is have a passing folk festival. Wrap everything in clingfilm or other plastic bung it on a table outside your gate with a sign saying help yourself.
It needs good footfall stats to work well and I suspect your road has nearly none.
OK scrub that idea. Throw it in a ditch in the countryside like everyone else.
Oh no a PS. Don’t chuck it in a ditch unless you remove every bit of data that might trace back to you.
There you go a happy time filling hobby for your retirement. Gratis you’re welcome.
I am sorely tempted!
Just goes to show that you never know how much stuff you have until you need to move it. Good luck, Grandad, and stop to have that whiskey or five before you throw your back out with the rest of the stuff!
I Just happen to be sitting next our own tray of 5 1/4 inch floppies. These however are for an Apple II E computer which is also happens to be sitting on the floor next to me. It’s the wife’s actually, complete with a dual 5 1/4 drive unit (no swapping between System/Program /System/Program floppies that you had to do with only a single drive), the original monitor and dot matrix printer.
50/50 chance it still works.
I’d recommend building onto the manor but I have found by personal experience that it would just be more space for your stuff. So I won’t recommend it. Good luck though.