I was out of town when I heard that a home in the neighborhood had been burglarized in the middle of the day. Don’t like hearing that of course, and now I am home in the middle of the day after being at my mother’s apartment for a couple of days, having made painfully little progress helping her get settled there which makes me feel inadequate and incompetent and just a little crazy, so I just want to warn those burglars that they had better watch out.

I’m a vigilante at loose in my own home. It’s not going to be pretty, but I’m just hoping to see some evidence of progress here and there and little to no blood. I’ve got a good case of the old post-getting into someone else’s stuff funk.  Not to be  confused with being in the middle of getting into someone else’s despair. That was Wednesday. Ignorance was bliss.  

The short form response to 48 hours dealing with someone else’s stuff is that I don’t want any stuff.  This morning I was so tightly wound and raring to go to get this place in order and accomplish everything that needs doing to make our life here sensible and organized, I was thinking God help any robbers who show up here today. I’d give ’em what for, flexing the muscles I don’t have. Then I laughed and re-imagined things. Come on in! Have at it! Let me direct you to the attic or this room or there. You can have this broken lamp that’s been in the living room for two months and these old cheesily framed photos and this vcr and an ancient laptop, too!  I know it doesn’t work that way and I sure wouldn’t like being burglarized, but it’s possible that the punishment ought to fit the crime, so maybe they should be forced to sift through people’s detritus day after day–and not the gold and fancy electronics.  Scared Straight meets Hoarders. I can almost see it except that I’d rather avert my gaze.