Looking Over My Shoulder

[poliphilo]

My son is coming to live with us.

Or at least park his gear with us while he does his living elsewhere.

So we're clearing a room for him.

This involves me in sawing up furniture and burning papers.

Which is uncomfortably close to what domestic murderers do.

And it's not as if I had half an acre to work in.

All this mayhem is going on in a tiny back yard and I'm in constant fear- what with the air and noise pollution I'm causing- that someone is going to pop their head over the back gate and go, "Hey, you!"

Comments

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

Sawing up furniture?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I want to get rid of it and this is actually the easiest way. It's not stuff anyone would buy.

[cricketshay.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about Michael?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, not Mike- my other son, Joe..

[cricketshay.livejournal.com]

Ahhh. =)

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

Ah. Good luck. I'm sure Joe is a fine son. However, every time my brother moves back in with my parents, murder is discussed. By both parties.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the idea is that he'll be shuttling between here and his girlfriend's place. And if he remains in the army he'll be away most of the time anyway.

We'll see.....

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

what a good father you are! But it seems like there might be easier ways to get rid of unwanted furniture. Call OxFam, wouldn't they come and get it?
(I know nothing about OxFam except they are similar to the Rescue Mission or Salvation Army here...)

craftyailz mentioned that you would probably saw up the mattress, as well. I have to admit that interests me...what's inside a mattress?

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I love that icon.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

courtesy of goth_twiglet

I love it too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a bed and the covering had been ripped to shreds by cats. We've tried giving things like this to charities in the past and they won't take them.

The mattress is OK- and maybe we can get that accepted by a charity. Thing is if we do we'll never find out what's inside.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I suppose in mattress stores they have those boring cross-section models of what mattresses look like from inside but it would be much more interesting to actually cut one up - or have a friend cut one up - and either see, or be told, what is inside.

Mom has a paper shredder. Then she takes what she's shredded to the cottage and we have a bonfire on the beach, using the shredded paper as tinder...so we're STILL adding to the acid rain problem. Fires are very satisfying, even in the kind of heat we have now...I don't know what it is about them, but ...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've always loved bonfires. Whenever I go down to my mother's we gather together all the fallen wood in her back field and have a big one.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Is there not a local tip (or Civic Amenity Site, or whatever you might call it)?

It's probably indiscreet to ask what's in the papers, that makes them too secret even for shredding. Time was, I wouldn't have assumed access to a shredder, but these days every high street offers domestic scale shredders to match your decor (or in girly pink).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They were drafts of poems and stuff like that. not secret but.....

We have a shredder, and I did shred about half of them- but then I got bored. Bonfires are so much more fun!

[zen-punk.livejournal.com]

Why would domestic murderers be sawing up furniture?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Not furniture exactly....
erm...
other things.

I have this picture in my head from the Chaplin movie M. Verdoux where Verdoux, the serial killer, is pruning his roses while the furnace at the bottom of his garden belches out black smoke.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Forget the furniture, I'm shocked at the idea of burning paper. Do people really do that? I thought that's what $10 shredders were for.

My city (Austin, TX) does a bulky trash pickup twice a year; today was one of the days. I read this while I was recovering from having schlepped a bunch of stuff to the street; a nice bit of syncronicity.

Better late than never!

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

h

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hey, we have a paper collection once a fortnight!

Most of our paper goes into it- but old poems- no- only the flames will do.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Oh. We have recycling picked up once/week, on the same day as the trash. I guess I'm spoiled.

I understand the utility of flames for things like poems.

You *could* shred them and use the shred for mulch...

I really am rather horrified that you burned something outside, let alone during the middle of the summer. This is a total kneejerk reaction, probably based on some environmental concern (the headline read "Tony Grist increases greenhouse gases!") coupled with the fact that we are in the middle of a severe drought. (We had rain last week for the first time in something like 10 weeks.) I haven't lived anywhere that allowed burning outside in... well, too long ago to count.

Now that I've written this, it sounds like science fiction. But it isn't.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bonfires are part of the English way of life.

When I was a kid my dad and I used to have great bonfires down the end of the garden. It was one of the few things we both enjoyed.

Just call me Pyro....

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I've been enjoying thinking about your sawing up furniture this week.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Working with the power saw makes me nervous. I'll be glad when the job is finished