My Shed

All I wanted was a wrecking bar.

I needed it to rip out an old door after the sun had boiled away its varnish and bubbled up the veneer.

So I went out to my shed to get the bar.  It is where I keep the things that I need but rarely use – but it is also a place where the things that I need – go to hide.

The shed is immense, big enough to hold an airplane – and may hold several but I wouldn’t know that for all the junk.

And the junk can be classified into several categories:

A: Stuff that never made it to the landfill

When a remodeling project calls for eight and a half sheets of sheetrock, where does the remaining half sheet go?

It goes the same place as the extra plywood, the old microwave and the wheel barrel with the missing wheel.

Guess where that is?

B: Projects

All projects in my shed are of two types: good intentions missing the intention needed to complete them and projects gone terribly wrong.

Both occupy space.

Where there once was an intention, there still is hope  – but when a project goes wrong (like when you took something apart but don’t know how to put it back together) there is no hope, only embarrassment and therefore the object must remain hidden away forever.

C: Oh that is so cute wouldn’t it look nice in the yard?

Let’s be honest here. Blame my wife.

She falls instantly and hopelessly in love with the oddest objects.  She will spot an old bathtub or a rusty Radio Flyer Wagon and immediately buy it.  She then plants it in the garden or props it up against the house for the summer – and when autumn arrives, it become shed-ware.

D: Stan Stuff

Not everyone has a friend like Stan.

On second thought, other than me, no one has a friend like Stan because I am the only person willing to put up with his bad habits, the worst of which is dropping off things in my shed when I am not around.

So there I was clambering over the refuse in my shed looking for a wrecking bar – when the junk shifted. A moment later, two phosphorescent eyes glowed out of the dark and a deep growl rumbled from beneath a pile of old machine parts.

I immediately called Stan.

“Something growled at me in my shed,” I told him.

“Yeah?”

“From its size, I doubt if it is native to the region. I’ll bet it is something you left there.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, vaguely recalling something, “I’d avoid that if I were you.”

“When are you going to come and get it?” I asked.

“Are you crazy?” he said, “I ain’t going anywhere near that thing again.”

So I went to The Big Box Store and bought a wrecking bar.

It didn’t take long to remove the door.  While I was loading it for the trip to the landfill, my wife stopped me.

“Hey, where are you going with that?”

Warning: She watches HGTV.

It is a curse.

Beaming with enthusiasm, she said, “I have all kinds of design ideas!”

“Where do you want me to put it in the meantime?” I asked…..

As if I didn’t know.

Author: Almost Iowa

www.almostiowa.com

27 thoughts on “My Shed”

  2. Great story, Funny and so relatable. Lucky for me, my shed holds my hot water heater and furnace leaving about a 4 ft square to store paint, rakes, extra flower pots, etc. Even so I have to pull things out to get at the one item I need.

  4. I think most households have their version of “the shed.” We live in the city, so ours is the garage and a certain corner of our basement I avoid whenever possible. But you have taken it to a new level when something in there actually growls at you and has eyes. Follow Stan’s advice, and leave it alone!

  6. Haha. That old door will be a picture frame or you will have to buy another and make it a bifold screen. I’ve got 10 old windows under the porch that HGTV said were a good idea. Good luck with the growler Stan left.

    1. She has a vision of making it into a bench in her potting shed. Right now, the potting shed is nothing but an old milk house. Guess who gets to turn it into a “potting shed”?

  7. I remember the shed. It had spiders. It also held our bikes, and the lure of cycling was so great I could brave the spiders to get them out. The shed also held sundry items that got stacked in front of bikes until we pulled the bikes out and pushed the other stuff further back. Eventually we weren’t at all sure the shed would hold our bikes, but if we leaned on the door just right we could still lock it.

    1. The spiders around here are to scared to go into my shed. I fear that one day whatever it is that Stan left in the shed is going to flee in terror, then where will I be? 🙂

  8. I did away with any possibility of saving stuff. I have a very small store room that is filled with seasonal things. Still can’t find anything, though. I think it is the nature of storerooms.

    1. I remember my boss boasting proudly years ago, that his new mainframe computer would never run out of capacity. It is the nature of demand to always exceed capacity.

  9. As usual, the yarn is well-spun, and the commentary complimentary.
    I learned this wee bit of advice decades ago, and have never had the chance to apply it. Maybe it will work for you? The story goes, that if you lose a marble, and you want to find it, all you need to do is throw another. The second will lead you to the first. You could try that with your new wrecking bar – when you go to store it in the magic shed, bet you any money the first will appear!

  12. I knew as soon as I started reading this story that Stan would be part of it. That Stan.

    I can relate to your wife. And my husband could relate to you. Just ask him about the Radio Flyer wagon in the garage and all the yard items in storage.

    1. I have to admit a fondness for Radio Flyer wagons. Back in the days when all little boys were The Lone Ranger and all little girls were Anne Oakley, my father turned our wagon into a “covered wagon” by crafting a set of hoops and covering them with an old sheet. It was a lot of fun.

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