Remember That Time When Manda Lost Her Damn Mind?

We aren't apex predators roaming the Serengeti searching for springbok and wildebeest to kill and eat. These days, we just go to Target.

Today, The Suz and I were able to isolate and bring home the elusive cherry Pop-Tart and the even rarer Parmesan Goldfish cracker.

It was good hunt.

Our checkout operator kept a running narrative on the contents of my cart. In addition to Pop-Tarts and Frosted Flakes, I also had the season 5 DVD of Dexter, which she deemed too scary.

I also had some items for my classroom, since it's that time of year again. Nothing big, just some construction paper and a few packs of markers. "You must be trying for mom of the year," she said to me.

"I don't have kids," I said. "I teach high school."

The Suz was duly impressed with me for not leaping over the counter and kicking this woman in the face. But given the overall contents of my cart, what with the school supplies and the fact that I eat like a five-year-old when left to my own devices, it was probably not an unreasonable conclusion on the checker's part.

I've got Pop-Tarts, Goldfish crackers, Crayola markers, Dexter DVDs, and a big bag of Swedish Fish. I'm lucky I didn't end up with my name in a file somewhere.

I don't usually buy Swedish Fish, because I have no self control around chewy candy, and Swedish Fish may lead me to a marginally psychotic episode.

For example, I used to advise the school yearbook. To provide some perspective on the magnitude of this project, let me just say that I followed my stint as yearbook advisor with two years of graduate school, during which time I carried a full course load and worked two jobs. The grad school years were still easier than the yearbook job.

Because advising the yearbook caused me to routinely work fourteen to sixteen hour days, my nutritional needs suffered. For a substantial chunk of the 2005-2006 school year, my body was held together by a sludge made of Coca Cola and Swedish Fish. This is not an exaggeration, and I am still surprised that I didn't develop scurvy.

Near the end of one particularly grueling deadline, I was working my way through yet another bag of Swedish Fish when I discovered one fish that was perfectly shaped and imprinted. This fish was too perfect to eat, so I taped him to a piece of copier paper and named him Bjorn, he was the quiet one.

Before the deadline was complete, Bjorn was joined by Ingmar (the funny one), Leif (the smart one), Leif's son, Erik with a K (the mischevious one), and Maurice (the charming one).

Nobody on the yearbook staff thought this was weird. If my students during the day thought it was weird, they didn't say so-- but now that I think about it, they did avoid any sudden movements or eye contact.

In my own defense, I didn't talk to the fish or anything. And I ate most of their friends.

But I think the part where I was keeping pet Swedish Fish played a large role in The Suz's threat to me at the end of the school year to quit advising the yearbook or get another roommate.

So I don't advise the yearbook anymore. But I still like to eat chewy candy during the rare moments of downtime at work, and I tend to have marginally better self control with a bag of Swedish Fish than I do with a bag of Starburst.

The Great Purge of 2011

I moved to Little Blue three years ago and joined the ranks of the American Homeowner. The Suz and I lived in the same apartment in Brighton for eight years, and during that time we accumulated a lot of stuff.

The Suz moved in with The G-Man by varying stages, so she was able to sort through her stuff and discard as she went through the process over a number of weeks. I was working full time and finishing graduate school and working an assisitantship to pay for said graduate school, so when it came time for me to vacate the premises at Corey Road, I threw everything into a series of boxes with the thought that I'd sort through and purge later.

Those boxes came to inhabit my basement... and, eventually, my nightmares.

This week I decided it was Time to do the Big Sort on the material evidence of the last decade of my life. I plugged in some dance music on the iPod and descended the stairs. It wasn't a terribly difficult job. If you've managed to leave things boxed up in a basement for three years, that's a pretty good sign that you can live without them, and they need to become yard sale or donation fodder.

I had a few moments of debate over a few items, and these generally ended with me telling myself, "That's not who I am anymore."

I don't kid myself. Deciding what stays and what goes is a deeply existential process. You journey through memories and determine what your aesthetic tastes are... and what they were and will be.

For example, I no longer understand why I own any shirts that are not black and tee. So pretty much anything that didn't fit this description went into a bag destined for Goodwill. I'm also not sure why my mother felt the need to send me a collection of seasonal door wreaths. She's a very generous person, and for that I am grateful, but sometimes I wonder if she's met me. Because someone who has met me would probably not associate me with a Christmas wreath sporting a little plastic snowman and sled.

Unless the little snowman had a noose around its neck and/ or was anatomically correct. Or if the sled had "Rosebud" written on it.

So the bulk of this stuff had to go, and while my basement isn't entirely clear of debris yet, it looks like a normal basement and not a Very Special Episode of Hoarders.

But I have some sympathy for the Hoarders that I didn't have before. Basically, unless a crew of workers comes to your house to clear out the crap, it is incredibly difficult to get rid of things that have accumulated.

Not in an emotional sense. I have an actual emotional attachment to a handful of the things in my house, and the rest of this stuff if purely functional.

But in a practical sense, it is just not easy to get rid of stuff you don't want or need anymore. I don't like to be wasteful, so I can't just throw these things out with the trash. Someone out there might be able to use this crap.

Hence, the yard sale.

I took two carloads of stuff up to the Ponderosa, the dwelling place of The Suz and The G-Man. We put it all out on tables, took out an ad in the paper, hung up signs, and worked our asses off for two days. I never worked so hard for so little. And at the end, we still had a truckload of stuff to take to the Salvation Army.

But I DID earn enough money in the yard sale to buy a heavy bag, and now I have a basement to put it in. I can't decide if this is a genius idea or if it will end with me facing charges at some point in the future.