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Tue 24 Jun, 2003 09:25 am
CONTEMPORARY DOMESTIC STORAGE TECHNIQUES
1. The Pile Process.
Where everything is placed in piles of its kind in strategic locations. Books are placed in piles of other books. Shoes are piled in pairs or singly with other shoes (usually under tables and behind doors). Clothing is often divided into two piles by the fastidious - a clean pile and a dirty pile.
2. The Bottomless Cupboard Phenomena.
Pick a cupboard (or closet, in America). Cram stuff into it until the door barely stays closed. Nail a "Do Not Open" sign on door. Seal with 'Police crime-scene' tape. Dig oubliette in front of door. Stock pit with Piranha.
3. The Charity Gambit.
Scoop up everything that can't be entombed within a cupboard and load into large, heavy-duty plastic rubbish bags. Place bags out on nature-strip when next Charity collection is due.
4. The Insurance Scam.
Collect everything of no value (usually stuff belonging to somebody else) and arrange in neat circular pile in yard. Sprinkle copiously with petrol. Ignite. Claim ignorance when asked of the stuff's whereabouts.
5. The 1950s Resort.
Clean up everything on all horizontal surfaces. Bag the rubbish and take outside. Wash and iron appropriate garments after discarding all items too old, small, faded, worn to be of future service. Assemble all bits and pieces in relevant sites after a thorough dusting and hoovering of site. Turn on TV and drink three large martinis.
PS. I am still exploring 'The Shed Routine' and 'The Garage Sale' and will report back with my findings at a later date.
hehehehehehehehehehe
i am definitely the Queen of the Pile Style. Clean in-season laundry piled here. Clean out-of-season laundry piled there. Laundry that needs to be done piled waaay over there. Laundry that needs to be mended? I think Goodwill is the best pile for that.
Clean linens. The largest pile of all. I think I need to build a cupboard for that pile.
From
Merriam Webster Online:
ou·bli·ette
Pronunciation: "ü-blE-'et
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French, from oublier to forget, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin oblitare, frequentative of Latin oblivisci to forget -- more at OBLIVION
Date: 1819
: a dungeon with an opening only at the top
I'm waiting on the "Basements of Doom" installment!
Gracias, mac! We have two oubliettes - one is the basement, the other is the third floor.
Old computers go in, but they never come out.
Sort of like a Roach Motel for old PCs.
Oubliette
You don't know what an oubliette is? It's a place you put people to forget about them.
But its too lovely a word to ignore by banishment to an oubliette. Much like another word that just rolls off your tongue: Salubrious.
---BumbleBeeBoogie
Having a computer has given me three new valuable ways of storing data:
--Left of the computer
--Right of the computer
--On top of the computer.
Speaking of Oubliettes: Is that what the "Pit" in Edgar Allan Poe's "Pit and the Pendulum" was?
I remember a ghost-hunt documentary that put cameras and temperature gauges in an oubliette in a castle that had since become an orphanage. Children in the room above the sealed oubliette had reported cold spots and apparations. I can certainly see how an oubliette could cause a cold spot. I don't think the ghosthunters found anything.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind (which admittedly is administered by the Pile Method) I think I remember "oubliette" being used to mean "wastebasket" ... slang maybe? I can't find a reference like that but...
10 sweaters? That wouldn't get me through a week here, let alone 10 months of winter (which is what it felt like we just finished - furnace on in September - off in June
)
We've been fortunate; we only have three outside storage sheds full of junk. c.i.
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