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Cutting Board #12

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Phil: OK, it may be coming down to it. I may have to venture into the garage. Not to finally retrieve that socket wrench from under the water heater, but to actually CLEAN IT OUT. (The garage, that is. I’m hoping the water heater is already clean inside. It’s full of water, right? That’s clean.) This is a masculine job in our house, which usually means I hire a guy to do it. But it’s been awhile since anyone last tackled this assignment, so I’m afraid I may be stuck with the actual labor because no one will do it for the money I’m offering. I don’t know how I’m going to break the news to the family of small Lithuanians living behind the old tool bench. They thought they’d never be uncovered. Actually, I thought they’d never be uncovered . . . at least until the annual Sauerkraut Festival. Sadly, they’ll have to go, along with other treasures I don’t really have room for. Like our fourth kid. And the goldfish bowl.

Steve: Guess those goldfish will have to fend for themselves. It’s tough out there in the world when you’re a goldfish. Not to mention a Lithuanian. Or so I’m told. Garages are the Last Repository of Household Stuff. Our stuff travels around the house, through the closets and under the beds, as it falls out of favor or becomes inoperable. Last stop is the garage. I was cleaning out my home office the other day, and ended up with an armload of old newspaper clippings from back when I still wrote on trees. What to do with these? They’re not quite trash, but pretty close. I certainly don’t need them at hand. I went out to the garage and stuffed them in a box. Next time we clean the garage (assuming that ever happens), I’ll probably throw them out. But I wasn’t ready to deal with that separation yet. This is how you fill a garage with sentimental value. This is how you end up with buckets of old paint and stacks of high school love letters sitting on top of Aunt Hazel’s antique sideboard next to your boat.

Phil: If a garage is the repository of your family’s memories, then my gaggle of relatives has a passion for old car batteries, broken digital alarm clocks, bent bicycle wheels, Ghostbusters action figures and boxes of third grade homework assignments. Since no one in our family managed to actually graduate the third grade, I’m guessing these were the “missing” assignment the goldfish supposedly ate. Lots of pretty construction paper collages of pilgrims and turkeys, not to mention some beautiful Popsicle-stick missions–

Steve: So much paper! Boxes and boxes of tax returns and instruction manuals and receipts and unpaid parking tickets. We keep that stuff because we think there’s a chance, however slim, that we may need it at some future point. I’ve got owner’s manuals for computers I don’t own anymore. Because you never know.

Phil: Well, since you’ve upgraded to the Atari 400, who needs a manual? We have a lot more than paper piled in our personal version of the Smithsonian’s basement. There are baby bed frames stacked up in there. We haven’t had any babies for nearly two decades now, unless there are some still hiding in those boxes up in the rafters. In which case, they should be heading for Harvard in the fall and will have no use for these battered springy things.

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Steve: In our garage, we’ve got enough furniture and small appliances to furnish an apartment or dorm room. This stuff has accumulated, stacked around the walls, because we couldn’t bear to get rid of it. It’s perfectly good stuff! And, someday, God willing, one of our sons will get a place of his own and he’ll need furniture to trash.

Phil: Hey, if the garage is already furnished . . . Think about it, Pops. Why pay some landlord when one of your boys could be not paying you? Sounds like a deal to me. But there must be something of value in your garage, right? Things near and dear to the ol’ Brewer’s heart?

Steve: Somewhere, among all the clutter in any family’s garage, is the special Man Nook, which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds. It’s the one small zone that the man of the house has declared off-limits from encroachment. The tool bench. The exercise area. The lawn care aisle. The oil-changing pit with built-in LED lights and stereo speakers.

Phil: Oh, man! I want a pit with LED lights and stereo speakers! I’d live there! Well, except for the two weeks during the Sauerkraut Festival.

Steve: Doesn’t cabbage have to be stored for a long time to turn into sauerkraut? You could turn your garage into a sauerkraut brinery, or whatever it’s called. I’m sure the neighbors wouldn’t mind the smell. You might even qualify as an agricultural industry, making you eligible for federal subsidies. The feds might pay you to not make sauerkraut. If that doesn’t work, your neighbors would probably pay.

Phil: Actually, I can stuff some cabbage in one of my old sneakers for about forty-five minutes and have a side of ‘kraut ready for that Polish dog in no time. Of course, only Boulaslaw the Polish Dog will eat it — thankfully he lives in a crate near the Lithuanian District in my unfinished car barn.

Steve: There should be some way to make a buck off our garages other than the housing of illegal immigrants/bootleg sauerkraut. All that enclosed, overheated space. This time of year, it’s like having an oven attached to your home. Hey, maybe that’s it: We could bake stuff in our garages. Buns for those sauerkraut sandwiches.

Phil: You’ve obviously never seen Boulaslaw’s buns. No market there, I can assure you. Besides, you don’t need a garage for a bakery in Redding. A yeast infection and some Teflon briefs will net you a few muffins while you wait at the bus stop.

Steve: So that’s where muffin-tops come from! I never knew. Next you’ll tell me that “whale-tails” come from goldfish.

Phil: I’ll be in the garage.

Phil Fountain and Steve Brewer

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