Leave My Stuff Alone!

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I didn't want much for Father's Day.....Honestly.  I've given up hinting about the life-size poster of Katie Meluah (available on www.katiefans.com for only R275) or the original twin choke Yamaha RD350, or the 14 day cruise-liner trip for me and Mrs ED (her to Alaska and me to Madagascar)….

And I still have the papier-mâché (what a posh word for a large glob of flour, water and newsprint) likeness (?) of the small dog… (or was it a seal?)  lovingly crafted by my daughter aged 7(along with the memory of the 17 hours it took us to clean the kitchen afterwards)....

...and the brightly coloured stick-man drawing presented to me by my son, with 'Deer dady, you ar the bestest dady in the weld'  crayoned in purple underneath (why shouldn't I still have it?  He only gave it to me in his matric year).

No, I have no delusions about fancy gifts or envelopes of cash….. I just wanted one thing from my family…. one simple Fathers’ day gift...
TO LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE!!!!

Why can’t they?  Really?

You see, as I may have mentioned in the past, I'm a bit of a hoarder.  I like keeping stuff.  Stuff is cool.  Especially if it is MY stuff!  But my family don't seem to understand the sacredness of my stuff, not at all!  

This isn't anything new. 

For years I have been fighting this battle, but I am no closer to winning now than I was a life sentence ago when I got married. 

For example:  I had a traffic sign. 

It was very special to me because, well … I woke up with it the morning I turned 21.  To others it may not have seemed very much of a sign at all:- it being the standard red-circle-with-a-black-diagram-of-some-fellow-digging sort that is seen on a regular basis - your basic common-or-garden 'Men at Work' sign. 

But it was significant for me. Why?  Because it not only suited the décor of my bedroom (going very well with my orange traffic cone, I thought) but also served as a reminder of the night before I turned 21.  My '21st Eve' party if you will.  If you take into account that I can't remember anything at all about that night, at least I knew that the traffic sign surely played some sort of role.
 
And as everyone of that age knows, if you wake up with a traffic sign on the pillow next to you, it is yours.
 
To keep. 

Forever. 

So I gave the sign a place of honour above my door, and there the cherished memento stayed for years.  Of course once I got married I was told in no uncertain terms that it had to go into storage, indeed my suggestion of hanging it over the fireplace was totally outvoted  (considering the constituency of voters included Mrs ED, myself and four of my friends I thought I was a dead cert to win, not realizing that the dog and two gold fish each had three votes).

But to be honest I was ok with that.  I knew it was safe and sound, and that one day I would take my old faithful sign out and give it pride of place once again. 

So for years I truly believed it was still warm in its blanket, tucked away in the back of the shed somewhere......  until the day I found it at the bottom of the kids' sandpit, scratched and peeled and rusted almost beyond recognition. I was devastated.
“That's… mu….pbt..stp…” I could not find the words, such was the depth of my emotion…
“Oh that old thing?” Mrs Ed deftly volleyed, “I put that there years ago to stop the sand running out the bottom…”

Can you imagine?

And it doesn't stop there.  About two years later I was abruptly awoken from a deep sleep by a hefty nudge in the ribs.  It was Mrs Ed, waking me so rudely for the following two reasons.
1. I had started to snore and the parents sitting in the seats around us were mumbling something about me ruining the concert, and
2. A familiar looking lad had just walked on stage  I think he was dressed as a pirate.

Overcome with emotion, I was once again at loss for words.
“That's… that's… mff pbtt…”
“Yes!” cooed Mrs Ed, “It's our son!”
“That's - MY FAVOURITE RUGBY JERSEY!” I blurted.
 
And it was. Or at least parts of it. 

I do concede that even as I had placed this treasured war garment in storage four years beforehand (even the cactus voted against me that time), it had already had a tear or two as a result of my heroic skirmishes on the field, and a small, immoveable patch of blood, which apparently made it unsuitable for posh dinners and weddings.  But the black and white striped, sawn-off sleeved No. 8 Alex Sports Club third XV Jersey was still … well… a rugby jersey. 

MY rugby jersey… 

But the costume draped over the figure on stage?  It had been chopped and stitched and tied and tacked and … well,  it was only recognisable by the colour  ….. I could sense my ex coach turning in his wine cellar.
“Oh yes, Of course. It's your old rugby jersey, isn't it?” quipped Mrs Ed, as if she had just remembered, “Did you notice I got the blood stain out?”

Is nothing sacred?

The list goes on.  Over the years I have found my famous (patent pending)melted beer-bottle ashtray (oh what a night that was! -  how many bottles broke before we got the braai at the right temperature. I think all of us guys still bear the burn scars - except for Evan whose uncle was a plastic surgeon …) being used as a sandpit spade.

 ...My coveted 'History's Greatest Front Page' edition of The  Zimbabwean Herald (“AXE MURDERER STRIKES AGAIN” said the headline, with another story alongside entitled 'MORE MEAT IN THE SUPERMAKETS THIS WEEK”) being used for puppy-poop-pick-up-operations (and THAT was the year I was finally going to have it framed) (the paper, not the poop).

...My lucky boxers (wore them in the only rugby match my team ever won in 1987, AND when we watched the 2007 World Cup) I found being used to clean the grease off a bike chain. 

...and my almost life-size ‘Kelly le Brock starring in 'Weird Science' movie poster sellotaped to the back of the shed, for bow 'n arrow target practice!

Does no-one share my deep sentimental feeling?

I suppose there is some glimmer of light  - the other day I was looking through a drawer for an elusive screwdriver when I found an old, scratched and buckled cell-phone sim card.  It was about to go in the bin with a lot of other bits of rubbish when I was attacked from behind.

“YOU CAN”T THROW THAT AWAY DAD!” screamed The MCM (my daughter - now a seventeen year old Money Consuming Machine)  as she sprang upon me in an effort to grab it out of my hand. “It's something that I have to keep, forever and ever and ever!”
“What on earth for?” I asked, picking myself off the floor.
“Because it 's got… it's got.... my very first text message, ever!”
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