Beware of the Garage!

I'm afraid to see what memories are bursting through this garage door...

Last weekend, I went to my parent's house to help clean out their garage (which looks like something out of a Hoarder's episode). I didn't have too much stuff in there, being as I haven't lived with them in years, but I did find a few items that caused uproarious laughter.

• Notes/cards: My sentimentality as a child caused me to save every. single. note. ever written to me. I'm not exaggerating. I found notes that were passed to me in middle school classes all the way to a bundle of 8th birthday cards. Reading a few of them, it's hilarious how big of a deal everything is to adolescent girls. The littlest thing starts the biggest rumor, and the slightest is analyzed to the point where it loses it's meaning. While I kept all of the letters from my cousins in Japan and my great-grandma who is no longer with us, the melodramatic, he-said-she-said, omg, notes (along with saved games of MASH and Lemonhead) went to the recycle bin.

• Work shirts: I found a bag of polo shirts that I wore pushing carts and boxing groceries in my days working at a local retailer. I had a lot of great memories with old co-workers in those shirts, but I also have a lot of memories being verbally harassed by people with nothing better to do than terrorize those that serve the general public. Some other poor soul at goodwill can have those memories.

• Old fiction stories: rather than hanging out with friends and running around outside as a kid, I sat in front of the computer and worked on my words per minute. I pumped out story after story fueled by my vivid and overactive imagination - the longest reaching close to 90 pages. I had a series going called Milo, which I believe I've mentioned before, in addition to others with melodramatic titles such as It's Okay to Cry (I just about peed my pants when I read that). I have yet to crack these open to read what I wrote, but I couldn't part with these. They came back to my townhouse with me. I'm sure there will be another blog entry to follow.

• Puberty Book: the worst find of them all. If anything marked me as a hoarder, this was it. I have no idea why I would save the poor book ("Growing Up and Liking It") they handed out to us in health class, but there it was, amongst old arts and crafts projects, and "what I want to be when I grow up" essays. I was laughing so hard about it that I shared the find with my family, who handled the book as if it had gotten VD for hanging out in the garage all these years. It gave horrendous tips such as how often to change your pads, what to do if you get blood on your underpants, how to keep a calendar of your "flow." It also included talking points for parents who couldn't quite bear to have this conversation with your kids. This book was written just as awkwardly as the I imagine the conversations that sprung from it. Of course, the cover has a scene of a meadow and a mom and daughter picking flowers. I can just imagine the design team picking this cover photo, "If that just doesn't scream menstruation, I don't know what does!"

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but you don't need to save everything to keep memories from your childhood...especially not a puberty book.