Friday, April 18, 2003

By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

As I get older, there are three things that I seem to have less and less of and one thing I have more and more of.

The first thing I have less of is money. No matter how hard I work, or how many hours I put in, there never seems to be enough money. The second thing is time. Back in elementary school, vacations during the summer down on Flamingo Street seem to last forever. Now they go by in a blink of an eye; that's if I get to take one at all with all the work I have to do.

Patience is the third thing I have less of. I've found that the older I get, patience is a virtue that I have very little time for. Guess that comes from not having enough money or the time to go on vacation.

The only thing I seem to have more of nowadays is junk. Junk is the cause of a lot of trouble in this world. The following are just a couple of truths I have found to be self evident about the wonderful word of junk.

Junk can multiply by itself. I used to go to the county dump once a week; now I go twice a week. Don't understand why the same number of people live at our house, but we noaw have twice as much junk to haul away.

There are only two logical explanations for the sudden increase. If you stack and pile junk long enough, it will multiply by itself or the neighbors are bringing their junk over and setting it out with ours. I don't know about you, but I bet it's the former rather than the latter.

Junk is mighty and all-powerful. It can stop cars and trucks from moving even out of your driveway! If you can't find your keys, you're not going anywhere. Just look through all of the piles of junk that haven't made it to the dump yet. The keys will be there somewhere.

Junk causes crime! Yes, junk has an ugly side. If you didn't have such nice, expensive junk maybe that thief wouldn't have broken in to steal it in the first place. I'm proud to say that I'm doing my part to keep the crime rate low in our county. No self-respecting thief would break in to steal our junk. It's even hard to get the trash man to haul it away - and I pay him! But, junk does have a good side also.

Junk helps the real estate market. Junk causes people to move. Think about it. No one has ever said, "Oh honey, we have plenty of closet space, let's not move." If you didn't have so much junk in your house, you'd have more living space and wouldn't have to move so much.

Junk helps the stock market. Right now, at any given point in the day across this great country of ours, countless thousands of people are spring cleaning and holding garage sales. If you happen to be one of them, in less than a month the very item that you threw away or sold at the garage sale you now need. You'll make a trip to the big hardware store with the orange roof and pay $20 for the same item you sold at the garage sale for one dollar, thus making the stock of the hardware store with the orange roof rise.

Junk helps the local economy. The Wife said she was tired of all the junk at our house. Not to mention the fact that she was also losing the battle with The Laundry Monster. Her patience was at an end, and it was time for a change. It was time for a Girl's Night Out on the town so she called her best friend, Julie.

Junk helps the travel industry. Julie lives in California with a husband, and two daughters aged 2 and 4. She said she was tired of all the junk going on there and decided it was time for Girls Week Out. She flew in from California just in time for spring break. The Wife picked her up at the airport, and I haven't seen either one of them since. She called and said that The Boy and I would be on our own for the next week. She and Julie were gonna relax, eat out a lot, live at Starbucks, take in a Braves game, see a couple of chick-flicks, and just have some fun.

A week without The Wife; this could be interesting, but that's a story for next week. This story is junk, er, about junk.

Finally, junk can save marriages. If you've been married for over ten years, you have by now a couple of kids, a dog, two cars and a house full of junk. Just the very thought of trying to divide all that junk up will keep most people married for years to come.

[Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at firemanr@bellsouth.net.]

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