One Man's Treasure is Another Woman's Battle

As with most couples that are preparing to marry and share a home together, the woman usually finds an opportunity to “purge” the man’s possessions. I know- men are finding me heartless right now… but the women? The women want to take me out for a drink so they can tell me about all the crap they had to pry from their boyfriend’s white knuckles. But men, let’s be honest- most women do not envision a home with inflatable furniture and Bart Simpson décor. All men have possessions that women would just as well douse with lighter fluid and dance their celebratory ceremonial chants in the glow of its embers. It’s a fact that as a woman, I’m willing to admit. But, I’m not without compassion. I know that men have deep emotional bonds with that couch some roommate years ago picked up at a yard sale and left behind when they moved out. You know, the one that may be incredibly comfortable, but screams 1987. Why wouldn’t they be deeply attached? Sure, they’ve hardly sat on it because it mostly functioned as a laundry hamper, but it was a GOOD laundry hamper.

So, you end up with a man’s “stuff,” a woman’s vision, and enough emotional tension to suck the air right out of a room. I pulled up with the pick-up truck so Jon and I could load his two couches for a yard sale. We tried the large one first and couldn’t figure out how to get it out the door. As we were lifting, tugging, sweating, and cursing under our breaths, I kept using words like “honey” and “babe” to soothe the tension. He didn’t use any words… and that’s to his credit because I saw a lot of words on his face. We finally gave up and left it sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor while we tried the smaller one. By the time we got to the truck with the smaller couch, I felt the need to make light of the situation.

“Hey- this is the couch I fell off of when we were making out. Remember when I rolled over and fell off and hit the hardwood floor?” Yeah, we make out people… and sometimes it ain’t pretty.

I thought my dancing in the bed of the pick-up truck while I sang “Memories… misty water colored memories… of the way we were…” was appropriate. He finally asked me to stop singing that song. I can’t blame him.

He finally assured me that he still loved me, even if he didn’t like me very much for asking him to part with his stuff. It turned out that I couldn’t find any other men who needed a seven-foot, blue plaid laundry hamper, so Jon won in the end. Or at least it was a compromise- now he’ll have somewhere to sit in the basement.