The Creature Under The Stairs

Remember I said the other day that Johnny organizes and re-organizes the AssVac's basement in his spare time? I don't know why he chooses to spend quiet hours that way, but he does.

I don't go down cellar much, especially now that I no longer have to kick the boiler to make it run, and I certainly don't have opinions on what stuff should go where (let me repeat: I don't know why he chooses to spend so many quiet hours down there), so I am not often privy to the fruits of all this labor. But today I needed a pliers, the one I keep in my bedside table drawer was missing (bollocks!), and Johnny wasn't home. So I creaked on down the stupid spiral stairs.

Well, not really "spiral," really bent at a 90-degree angle so that you can't get anything bigger than a breadbox down them, but I liked the near-alliteration of "the stupid spiral stairs." And, as we all learned from Oprah Winfrey: when it comes to telling a story, how it sounds is way more important than telling the truth. Anyway...

Would you like me to show you what I found? Okay, c'mon!

I found the paint cans, small tools and accoutrements all neatly lined up on shelves along the front wall...

(Oh, plus the door from my ex-ironing-board-, was-going-to-be-spice-cabinet. We'll talk about that later.)

I found George's mechanic tools put away in the George's-mechanic-toolbox, with the drawers all closed and everything, against the middle wall under the (I think) leftover strapping from I-don't-know-when...

I found the -- well okay, this part's not exactly neat and organized. But I ask you: how would you go about neatly organizing an acre's worth of protective plastic?

(Whoops! Looks like he missed a couple paint cans. Ah well. Three out of a hundred ain't that bad.)

I found the door- and window-trim from the kitchen leaning up against the side wall, waiting for me to shake the doldrums and strip it off...

(Keep waiting, doldrums, it's gonna be a while.)

And then, I turned around, and I found this...

Everything else.

Huh.

Oh! And would you like to know what I did not find?

Pliers.

I looked, too. Sort of. I mean, I walked around the pile and peered in at all the edges, but I can't honestly say that I actually touched anything. No, I kept my hands clasped behind my back the entire time, just leaning forward and looking with my eyes. You know, the way boys look for things in refrigerators and medicine chests. Places in which, incidentally, I actually do have opinions on what stuff should go where.

Huh. Maybe I've just accidentally understood another thing. Maybe I finally see why I am the official Looker-For-Things in the rest of the house.

After all, I sure wouldn't want to bespoil that Funk & Wagnalls organ-eye-zation!