Helped unload a truck yesterday.

Some guy on the website I frequented posted that he was moving to my general area so I send him an IM offering to help him unload his truck if and when he moved.

Shore 'nuff, a while later I got an IM with a date, time, phone number and ADDRESS. (see my recent blog entry on GPS and you'll know why I was impressed. No stupid from him!)

I drove on down, even though it was actually well over an hour away.

I met the man and his charming wife and looked at the truck, which was stuffed full. It looked overwhelming, but with the help of his parents and another guy from the website, we got all the stuff off the truck and into the apartment in about 2 hours flat.

It was a fairly organized offload and I'm sure most of the stuff we pulled off got at least pretty close to where it went.

Furniture-wise, these people think very much along the same lines as I do, as their furnishings were mainly antiques, and there was vary little of the new and improved modern stuff that gets palmed off to the public as furniture these days. Most of the dressers, chests and cabinets weighed a ton, as they were made of solid hardwoods.

Very beautiful stuff. I'm quite sure than in a while after the Mrs gets through doing her womanly magic to the place it will becoome a very warm home. She appeared to be the type that has the magic in her to do this.

Of course, I busted his chops.

Halfway through unloading, I said to him, "You've moved before and it sure shows."

"How's that?"

"You have enough common sense to secure the sex toys in a locked footlocker so nobody has to look at them, easpecially your parents."

He blushed until he saw my deadpan look of innocence and laughed.

Truth is, some years back I helped a guy move. He was a real macho man type that looked like a logger on a cereal box or something like that, and when a wardrobe opened up I sort of figured out that he was probably a cross dresser. Whatever.

When you ask someone to help you move, you open yourself up to the person. They get to see all your stuff unless you take serious steps to hide it. I have a feeling these people really had little if anything to hide.

It was at about this point, when I was grabbing another box, I had a thought. I suddenly thought of all the junk we collect as we go through life.

Although the home furnishings were damned nice, there was the usual collection of junk and stuff we collect in our lives and it actually accounts for the bulk of things we own.

This couple was no different than any one of us; the majority of what they owned was simply junk and stuff.

It made me look at my own home and reflect that when I'm dead and gone that most of the contents of the house will wind up in a huge pile outside for the trash guys to haul off unless the pickers snag a few odds and ends. Still, I'm pretty sure most of it will wind up at the dump.

I also thought that maybe it might be time for me to slowly go through this stuff and start culling. For example, there is a hunting outfit I snagged somewhere that is now too big for me that I will never wear, and I have a box of shooting stuff I will never use that I simply either ought to sell or give to someone that can use it.

As I sit here writing this post I can see a menagerie of things I simply ought to get rid of because they are of no earthly good to me whatsoever.

Still, a lot of the junk and stuff we accumulate are things we use so seldom that they are almost, but not quite, more trouble than they are worth.

I have a gear puller that I have not used since Methuslah wore knickers, yet I keep it because I know that eventually I will come across a project that will require it. It simply takes up space and when you think about it, for all the aggravation it causes by getting in the way of other things in my toolbox drawer, I ought to just get rid of it. When I need one I can simply rent it for peanuts. I think Advanced Auto will actually loan me one for free.

Still, all in all, we really have very little worth getting upset over. Most of our belongings are just junk and stuff and we spend a huge part of our lives worrying about these things that don't really amount to a thing.

Unloading that truck was good for me. It gave me an opportunity to look at something in a different light.

Some people might think I'm a real nice guy for helping that couple out, but the truth of the matter is that I seldom do something for someone where I don't go away feeling like I got the better part of the deal.

I learned something, or at least relearned something I had forgotten.