Adventures in Accumulation

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With heat raining down on us like grease from an overflowing deep fryer, we reach the outer gates of the time-preserved tomb and, after the evocation of a security code, pass through to the guardian's lair.

"I've lost my key, do you have bolt cutters?"

"No, we aren't allowed to keep bolt cutters on the premises. Are you sure you don't have your key?"

"I'm sure. I lost it years ago."

A pause and then, "when was the last time you opened your locker?"

"About six years."

"Six years?"

"Six years and a bit."

Quietly. "Holy God."

After a short side trip to secure bolt cutters, we return and head to my locker, accompanied by the jovially curious custodian. Then the magic moment arrives. After six years of sealed darkness, I cut the padlock off and swing open the door, casting light onto my old university-day belongings. Skip and the storage manager lean in to glimpse the ancient treasures revealed.

A thick lair of dust covers the imposingly stacked mounds of boxes and furniture, sprinkled with a desperate assortment of loose household items. The evidence of a hurried burial rests in plain view.

The evidence of a hurried burial rests in plain view.

"You're going to take all that in your truck?" The storage manager sounds both skeptical and concerned.

"Well, actually I'm hoping to give most of it to the Salvation Army." I'm quietly doing the math - sizing up the load and trying to figure out how many trips it will take to haul all of this crap to the nearby Salvation Army outlet. I'm starting to feel less excited about the decision to forgo a rented van.

Skip, evidently also a little concerned by the quantity of stuff, pipes up. "They don't happen to come and pick stuff up, do they?"

"Well," the site manager begins his sentence with the air of someone who knows someone who might be able to help with a sticky situation. "There is a guy we use. He picks stuff up. I could give you his number. His name is Merv."

"Really, his name is Merv?"

"Yes, he has a van."

"Of course."

I make the call and, after a short, confusing, conversation in which Merv strangely tries to pretend that he knows of my stuff and me, he agrees to swing by in an hour. A Hail-Mary play of a plan now in place, Skip and I swing into action.

In the dim shade of afternoon, we race to frantically haul my belongings out of the locker. We leave the "good stuff" for last, and haul the unwanted items down to the parking lot, piling them there in eager anticipation of Merv's arrival. Once all of the refuse is piled out front, we start to bring down the good stuff and load it into the back of Reece's truck.

The immense pile of unwanted junk - easily three truckloads in size - starts to look larger and larger as the clock winds down towards closing time for the storage facility and Merv hasn't appeared. I know that the storage people aren't going to let me out of the compound until it's dealt with, and our options for dealing with it seem now to be entirely in the hands of our phantom accomplice, Merv.

Skip creates a "Free Stuff" sign and sticks it on the pile, but the fish don't appear to be biting. I experience concern. Soon Reece's truck is fully loaded, the storage locker is empty, and an immense pile of relics from my post-secondary education sits accusingly on the pavement. Skip and I begin to discuss strategies for bolting from the compound, until I realize that the storage people already have my Visa number. Then the front gate swings open to let another renter in, and an immense, aging panel van slips in simultaneously, thwarting the elaborate security system. Merv has arrived.