Given that I wrote a rather philosophical post a few days ago about the attachment of labels to people, the irony has not escaped me that I bought a Dymo label machine this morning.
It’s the classic sticky label machine we all remember from the late 1970s that punches letters into sticky plastic tape, which can then be fastened to any object you might care to imagine; plugs, drawers, folders - you name it.
The label machine is part of a far bigger jigsaw; my other half’s attempts to begin de-cluttering our house. Since adopting the children a couple of years ago, our house has slowly filled up with stuff. Well meaning friends and relatives have given us more stuff that we could ever have dreamed of. There comes a time though when the children are growing, and we figure out what happened.
Our friends weren’t just being kind - they were offloading their junk on us.
We are of course now doing the same. In the UK a wonderful use of Yahoo Groups has sprung up called “Freecycle” - where people create and run their own local yahoo groups offering things they are giving away. It’s very much a case of “first come first served”, and you always have to collect.
Freecycle has opened our eyes to an interesting human trait - it’s amazing what crap people will be interested in if it’s free. In no particular order, this is some of the stuff we have offloaded;
The rotten facia off the shed that used to be in the back garden
Offcuts of carpet
The tent that got destroyed in a storm
A cheap wire shoe rack
A half-complete set of Poirot DVDs
A box of obsolete computer books
Given the slow re-emergence of our house from the heaps of stuff, W headed off to IKEA last night to buy ever-more storage units. She also emptied my wallet before leaving (something I only discovered at lunchtime today). I have visions of our house resembling a safety deposit box store when I arrive home this evening - with walls covered with multitudinous shelves, doors, and boxes.
And you think I’m joking…
Hence the requirement for a Dymo machine. Every one of the many, many bins and neatly stacked boxes will be adorned with a sticky label; “Jonathan’s shoes”, “W’s shoes”, and so on. Of course it will also be tempting to label abso-bloody-lutely EVERYTHING in the house; “Jonathan’s Toothbrush”, “Jonathan’s Left Wellington Boot”…