Next step after downsizing? More downsizing

The Four Ds of Later Life

Hey, there’s a new season of Storage Wars on TV! Watch people bid on abandoned storage units and claim the cast-off possessions of strangers whose lives had taken unfortunate turns. Here’s a silver urn of grandma’s ashes - dump ‘em out, a little polish, big money! I wonder if they ever feel like grave robbers looking for Tut plunder, fearful of a curse that falls on all who break the seal. Maybe every year there’s a whole new cast, because everyone in the last season was found dead, eyes open, an expression of absolute fear on their faces because they’d violated a sacred space and taken all the Beanie Babies.

I have a storage locker. Not proud. The industry says that people rent them for reasons they call the four Ds: Death, Divorce, Dislocation, and Downsizing. I’m shooting three out of four, but the year’s not over. When you think of storage units in those terms, the entire facility seems haunted, its bright and chilly interior a freezer stocked with boxes of unhappiness. But not always! Once I saw a spatter of a million pieces of glitter on the floor outside of one unit, and I thought perhaps it was leftover supplies from a little girl’s party. Or, a stripper exploded. But one week there was a smell of fish that wafted through the corridors; perhaps someone had caught a lunker bass and stored it in the unit with insufficient ice, intending to return the next day, but something happened. He was hit by a bus on the way to the divorce lawyer, maybe. The fish stink could be a two-D event.

You can drive inside the main building, park, and load your stuff on to wheeled pallets. Half the time there’s someone else there, and a sense of furtive shame seems to keep us all from speaking. Yeah, I can’t throw it away, either. Last week I saw a wood-paneled station wagon, crammed to the gunwales like a hoarder house, and a bent old man with Bernie Sanders Hair (Kim Carnes’ unsuccessful follow-up to Bette Davis Eyes) pull out a shoebox and totter to the elevator. What was in the box? You can’t ask. A caul of privacy attends the interment.

When I began the 3-D experience at the start of the year, I started moving things into a 10 X 5 box. Not just the old things I wanted in the next place - books and clothes and decorative items like a ’39 DeSot0 hubcap turned into a clock - but new things I would need. There were six big plastic boxes of newspaper and magazine clips; an issue of Playboy in which one of my books was briefly mentioned. If I ever met Miss December 2001 we’d have something to chat about. It’s not as if I’ll ever go through these boxes, but just picking them up and feeling their weight was a reminder that I had accomplished something in life - although I had to reduce that feeling by 2/3rds, since I had three copies of everything.

As the unit filled up, it felt as if my life was draining out of its old container into this jail cell. As I pushed the cart with its jittery wheels down the hall, watching the lights automatically pop on as I headed back to my space, I couldn’t help but think of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the hallowed object getting stored away where no one would disturb it. The difference of course being that my crate, if opened, would not melt Nazis. It was just magazines and matchbooks and bags of family memorabilia. Nothing that meant much to anyone, but me.

Over the course of three months I filled it up; over the course of two more, I emptied it out. I contracted with the company to rent a smaller unit, 5 x 5, and after ruthless additional winnowing, I managed to get everything into the smaller unit. One last look at the old space, with an unexpected twinge of emotion: that’s another milestone, another change, another move.,

I thought: there’s someone out there who’s about to get hit with a D, or maybe two or more, and they have no idea this tin crypt is here, waiting. Well, I should no more think of him than the person who vacated the 5X5 ever thought I’d be along. Doesn’t matter. The clips and matchbooks and books and bin of things that didn’t fit in the new place are now resting in the dark, and I have no need to return except to get a suitcase, or rut around in the box of cords and power adapters. Although I might go back tomorrow. I think I inadvertently transferred a bag from the car that had some groceries.

Well, the place is air-conditioned. I’m sure the walleye fillets will be fine.