Oh, I knew about The Family Problem.

But I was young and na�ve when I married the spousal unit and deep, deep in my heart I was convinced I Could Change Him.

I was so very foolish when I was young.

Yep, with eyes wide open I married a man I knew full well was a pack rat. It is the one thing about him that drives me crazy.

He comes by it honestly. His mother lives in a five bedroom house she has managed to fill to the rafters with stuff. His oldest brother has massive collections of stuff, so much stuff that he keeps some of it in the barn at the home farm. His middle brother also stores stuff on the home farm. Stuff. They need their stuff.

The family mantra is the words "Good to have". None of them can bear to ever throw anything out because, well, Someday It Might Come In Useful.

You know that character Pigpen in the comic strip Peanuts? The little kid that walks around in a perpetual cloud of dirt? Well my spousal unit is like that, but instead of dirt, he runs around in a perpetual cloud of clutter. He loves him his stuff and he loves him his clutter.

Round about our early 30's a lot of things came to a head in our marriage. We seriously considered splitting, but we had a very young child and so, for her sake, we went into marriage counseling.

I poured out my tale of woe to the counselor, enumerating the spousal unit's many faults including the fact that he was a ratus packus. To my shock he actually intimated that I --yes, ME-- that I had faults and listed things I think we can all agree could be best described as My Charming Quirks.

You can well imagine my horror when the counselor actually agreed that at least one of these things could be considered a fault. Maybe Even Two.

We sorted out a lot of things thanks to her help and one of them was that I had to learn to be more tolerant of the spousal unit's pack rat tendencies.

Fine.

So we negotiated that he would try to keep house clutter to a minimum but that he would have an area where he could build a workshop and also store his stuff, those valuable things such as bits of old tin that were good to have because one day we might need them to protect a wood pile.

To this day I don't know why, but I agreed that for his convenience he could actually do this near our home.

Admitting this sorry fact is especially difficult because, well, I have nothing to blame this on but my own stupidity. I mean, if I had a substance abuse problem--say issues with alcohol or drugs--I could at least pull people aside and whisper sotto voce that "It was the cocaine speaking."

Sadly, my major issues are with the two food groups known as fat and sugar. Believe me, saying the words "It was the Haagen Dazs speaking" doesn't garner nearly the sympathy that other abuse problems do. I have had many, many years to marinade in my regret without any real sympathy from anyone.

The spousal unit's ability to collect clutter is truly astounding. I think he exerts a special clutter gravity field. I have christened the area around his workshop "Dogpatch" after the hillbilly town in an old cartoon called Li'l Abner.

Mostly he brings his clutter in the back of his truck, parks out by his shop, and offloads it while I avert my eyes, pretending that nothing is happening. Then one day he had the chance to get a shed.

For free.

Sheds Are Good To Have.

Well, he knew there was no way that he could sneak a shed in because, well, while I might miss clutter arriving in small increments, I would notice a whole new building. Negotiations were begun. We drove by the shed. It was a thing of great ugliness, its appearance not helped by peeling paint in odd colours. Promises were made. If he could only have the shed, it would be spruced up and painted in pleasing colours.

Clearly he really, really wanted this shed.

To this day I don't know why, but I agreed that he could not only bring the shed home but actually put it up between our home and Dogpatch.

It was the Haagen Dazs speaking.

A few days later the shed arrived on the back of a tow truck normally used to move small trucks. It was deposited on the agreed site between Dogpatch and our home.

To this day I don't know why, but I left it up to him to decide what the phrase "pleasing colours" meant. He chose a pale yellow and very bright green trim. The daughter did the actual painting and I can't remember if she ran out of paint or ran out of time, but the doors were never finished all the way up.

"It looks like a mountain scene," the spousal unit opined. He said he wanted to leave it that way, that he would paint some grazing cows on the green portion of the door. Trusting fool that I am, I believed that he would get around to doing this and so I actually agreed to this sorry state of affairs.

It was the Haagen Dazs speaking.

Well, the thing was that this very odd building became a sort of focal point. People would drive up into the yard and the colour scheme, which is completely out of sync with everything else around it, would draw their eye there. To this very ugly building. And to Dogpatch.

All my beautiful landscaping?

Forgotten in a heartbeat, buried under the gravitational force of Hillbilly Heaven. This went on for a few years.

Well, today I took brush in hand. I decided that enough was enough and it was time to make that %?@! shed melt back into the woods. I cut a leaf off a blue-green hosta called "Blue Cadet" and marched into the paint store, bought the paint closest to that colour I could find, then chose a darker green to be the trim.

It took me over nine hours of very hard painting today to get it done, but done it is.

The best part?

Even the spousal unit admits it looks better.

Look, I know I can't change the man. If piles of wood, gravel and building materials make him happy, then as far as I'm concerned he should have piles of wood, gravel and building materials.

Sometimes I just wish they weren't where I have to see them.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 302.91 miles (487.4 kilometers)
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers