A Storeroom, Some Junk And A Little Girl ...

I mentioned in my other blog, Spiff, The Spaceman that wifey and me are a little crazy these days. We've been spending our Saturdays doing major cleaning around the house. And it's been happening every Saturday for quite a while now. I don't know what's gotten into us but we've become extreme cleanliness freaks ... LOL!

I mean, we could like laze in bed till late on Saturday like normal human beings but no, instead we wake up early, make the kids breakfast and then get started with our back breaking task of spring cleaning. Well, I wouldn't really call it spring cleaning cos you normally do that once in a while. We clean the place thoroughly every weekend so I think we're a little cuckoo.

Anyways, this Saturday it was the storeroom's turn to be cleaned inside out. In a previous post, I mentioned that I kinda keep all my stuff and don't throw them away. In other words, I'm a junkie as one of you said :D Well, that's entirely true cos when we cleaned out the store room, we discovered a lot of my junk dating back to the Jurassic era! I was amazed at the amount of junk I had in there.

I'm even more amazed how I managed to fit that much junk in such a small storeroom. It was beyond my imagination how I achieved that feat ... hehehe ... Some of the things in there were from an era long gone that I didn't even know where in heavens name I got them in the first place.

There are things such as an old steering wheel, tons of empty files, a rotating police-like siren on a tripod, an old cable TV decoder that should be in a museum somewhere, ball lock pins and some electronic devices that look like they belong in a James Bond movie. I still have no idea what they were.

Worst part was hearing wifey laughing away hysterically at some of the junk she was bringing out one by one from the storeroom. She was really amused at the kinds of rubbish I had in there. You see, we don't really go through that storeroom much.

I usually just chuck all my old stuff in there and it was like going through the lost treasures of King Solomon's mines or something. But it was kinda embarrassing having my own wife laugh at some of the useless junk that I collected over the years. Even the boys were pretty amused!

It took us close to two hours to clear out all the junk and only keep the things we REALLY need. After sorting the junk from the good stuff, I put it all in my car (which needed two trips) and took it to this little recycling centre. A big huge metal box by the side of the road just a few minutes away from my place where people send their old stuff to be recycled.

The place was already overflowing and there was already a lot of old junk outside the metal recycling box so I dumped what I could in the box and the rest that couldn't fit outside the box like everyone else and went back for the second batch of junk.

It was then that I saw this little girl and her dad. I could tell they were not well to do and there she was scavenging through other people's junk to find items that she could use. She managed to find this old color pencil set, some old bags and a few other things. The moment I put my second batch of junk down, she went through it and saw my old slippers (and they really were old) she quickly grabbed it. That was when I felt so sad for her.

If she was there a few minutes earlier, I could have given her all the old clothes I just threw into the bin. Some of the clothes were still new, only used once or at the most twice. And even the old ones were still pretty decent. You could see the joy in her eyes when she found something that she could salvage.

It sure did tug at the old heart strings. There I am moaning away about not being able to buy that $1000 mobile phone or even that $300 pair of running shoes and here was a little girl going through junk and being happy when she found something she could use!

That's when it made me realize how bloody thankful I should be to have what I have. Yet, I'm forever complaining that I don't have this or that when there are people in this world so much more worse off than I am. I really wanted to break open that recycling bin and take back those old clothes and give it to her if I could. I went home with this really humbled and sad feeling in my heart.

My one Christmas wish this year is to see Santa going over to her place and also the houses of the less privileged and giving them tons and tons of goodies. It would sure put a smile in my heart again.
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