I am clearing out space in the garage and various dark cabinets of the house in which I live so that I, ultimately, have more room in my closet so that I (long story short) do not go batshit crazy. The surprisingly arduous Closet Reorganization Project is a post for another time.

No one’s really touched the boxes in the garage since before my mom died. A few years ago I did clear out the weird bottles of water she would always have on hand; old plastic liters that she’d fill with water from the filtered tap. Boxes and boxes of liters of water. There was a good reason for this originally, but I’m not sure if they were ever used after a point. But she needed to have her bottles of water, always, always.

That was the only quirkiness she had in terms of her possessions — or so I thought. Until I started collecting all the cleaning products to throw away.

Holy hell.

I have lost count of the bottles of carpet solution, cans of oven cleaner, bottles of solvent, furniture oil, air fresheners, stain remover, silver polish, dishwashing detergent. Not to mention butane, touchup paint, lamp oil (?), various car fluids, bug spray.

Oh, you have no idea. The word “pathology” came to mind after I filled yet another giant bin with never-touched bottles of “Chemex” or “Dissolve Away”, sneezed, and called the waste disposal company.

Even though Elderly Relative, and now me, have lived here perfectly safely for years, I now can’t think of us going up like kindling before my appointment the nice people at Hazardous Waste on Saturday.