Another fall and spring semester have come and gone; it is that blessed time of year when I may shout, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I am free at last!” The last of other people’s children have moved out of my apartment building, and the only thing I have to worry about is whether I should choose to run all of the washing machines simultaneously or crank up the Josh Groban to face-melting decibels.
With the departure of my 816 dorm mates comes the yearly thing we here at Theology Girl like to call the “Stuff Redistribution Project.” This year, our (my) motto was “Not in my apartment.” Peter has a tendency to find value in things most sane people would recognize as filth, so every year it became increasingly apparent that I should not let him store the piles of worldly goods the students left behind in our home. I would come home from work and find him knee deep in a pile of garbage bags. “But Adrienne,” he’d shout as I dragged him away, “There are people who could use those pipe cleaners! There are people who HAVE NO PIPE CLEANERS IN THIS WORLD!” I would see his utter horror at this great injustice and relent. And all of the abandoned pipe cleaners of the world would find a home in our apartment.
This year, however, I got smarter. My dorm had a drive to collect clothes, food, books and “random stuff.” This proved to be a successful tactic. And by “successful,” I mean, “We can’t open the door to four offices because the stuff has organized and has settled a fiefdom in them.” Seriously. It is ridiculous. I have paraded a host of people into my building, promising as much stuff as they want for whatever charitable cause they can make up and still we haven’t even made a dent. I have ceased to be amazed at the abundance afforded to the people here. And I find myself rather impatient at other peoples. Take for example, this exchange:
“Adrienne, there are six TVs here!”
*Heavy sigh* “Yeah, I know. Stupid, bulky things. At least the flat screens were easier to store.”
“Flat screens?”
“Yeah. But we gave those to the Dana Farber people. Goodwill doesn’t want them.”
“Wait, you had more than one flat screen television?”
“We had four. Could you please stop gawking and help me stack the Sony Playstations? They are blocking the Gucci handbags.”
This is my life.
People are also amazed that I don’t want anything. I have first crack at all of it, since I am the fool who thought it was a good idea to collect it in the first place. And it is not through any particular virtue that I overlook the obvious wealth that could make me a fortune on Ebay. I covet as much as the next person. But this is year seven of this nonsense now--I am of the hard-won opinion that I Don’t. Need. A. New. Television. And that there are people out there who do. So I collect. And store. And accidentally drop shelves on my head and cut my hands on broken martini glasses. But do not keep.
My one weakness though, I must admit, are the books. Oh, the glorious, glorious books. The lush, verdant pastures of abandoned books of which I am the steward. Looking at them makes my mouth water and my knees go weak. The place for which we are collecting them only wants texts books. But the nice people of my building get rid of pretty much any book you can imagine. It’s almost magical, really. One of my RAs said, “I really want to read [insert some book about Hillary Clinton here]” Moments later, it appeared. The books always find a home with us.
Sadly, this too is getting out of hand. We are now up to 16 bookshelves. I had prided myself in the fact that I had one whole shelf devoted to nothing but appliances--no books! HA! I am winning against the books! But no. Now I have no shelves without books. They are even in the bathroom. Peter is drawing up plans to make a shelf out of books so that we can store more books on it.
See? This is why I don’t want a TV or Gucci bag. Storing such things would take up precious space that could be used for storing books.
So passes another Stuff Redistribution Project. If you’re in the greater Boston area and need, uh, any random obscure thing you can think of, let me know. If I can find it, you can have it. (Seriously--someone donated a massive box of Beano. And another person gave us a giant case of seaweed paper. And still another a fleet of left-hand gloves, all the same color WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?) I can say this--I am of the firm opinion that if every college in this city collected all of the stuff students left behind (food, clothes, Beano), no one would be hungry or cold or gassy. There is just that much wealth wasted. And it’s not just BU. I see the obscene amounts of stuff from Boston College, Harvard, MIT, or even some of the smaller schools. Don’t be afraid, brethren. Redistribute! I might even let you store it in my apartment if it would help.
But not until next year.
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