Still Scribbling (keyboard style) Episode 5— Becoming Super Rog!
February 1, 2025
Prepare to be amused (or annoyed; your choice)!
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A Place For Everything: The Heap
In the Before Times – before I was fat, bald, old, weak – I attended Clown College.
For that I journeyed from New Haven, Vermont to Blue Lake, California. I didn’t let poverty stop me from paying tuition and renting a room in a house with a bunch of clowns (literally), with $64 to spare and live on.
For one year.
Our kitchen / dining area sported a blue shag carpet, as kitchens do. One day, the man who had rented the house – Frank God Breathing (his legal name, Hand To Frank) – said, “We should rent a vacuum to clean the house.”
Abhoring a vacuum (just like Nature) and finding such a drain on my paltry, non-existant resources disgraceful, I said, “We don’t need no vacuum cleaner; the floor’s not that dirty.”
Frank GB leaned down, rose back up, pinching a stone the size of a high school class ring.
A boy’s ring.
I guess I’ll never make my mark in this world as king of the cleaners.
I’m not a slob; I self-identify as having a high tolerance for chaos.
Which explains my writing desk, tables, chair, floor, washer, dryer.
But don’t worry; I always know where anything I’ve written is (and I keep everything, you know, just to be safe).
I keep it all in The Heap.
My “Heap Method” (I need to trademark that before Big Tech swoops in, steals my system, creates a bestselling book; Healthy Heaping, and starts charging me every time I use my own Frank-damn system) is quite sophisticated, yet I feel confident anyone can learn how to use it.
In layman’s terms, you pile everything into a Heap. Hence the name (should I trademark “Heap” too? Probably).
Whatever you are looking for is in The Heap.
Somewhere.
Thanks to The Heap being organized chronologically, if you are looking for, say, your eyeglasses, just ask yourself, “When was the last time I could see?” Then measure down from the top of the Heap (2 seconds ago) to the appropriate time period, and bada-bing, bada-bang, bada-boom: vision!
Easy-peasy.
You can keep multiple Heaps (just one benefit of the simplicity of this system – you can make it as complicated as you like), or just use one massive Heap. Eventually, the Heap will mature from a single pile to multiple piles (assuming there is some type of roof or ceiling where you live / work), but the principle remains the same.
One obvious advantage to the Heap Method is that the bottom of the pile is composed of items you haven’t used, seen, or thought about for decades and so no longer need or even recognize – mysterious phone numbers scribbled on scraps, IRS warnings, unpaid overdue bills, lost pets (“How’d you get in here, Toby? Or Tony. Or whatever your name is”), socks long ago attempting escape – which you can now simply toss in the trash, or, for the environmentally conscious, recycling. With no guilt or worries.
Or move them to a new “Old Heap” – which is always the wise move. Because you never know, right?
If there is any flaw to “The Heap Method” – and I’m not saying there is – it’s that eventually your entire dwelling becomes so crammed full of crap you can’t use the bathroom. Or enter it. Or find it. Simple solution: dig down through the Heap until you find your wallet, find your keys (when was the last time I left the house?), wade your way to the front of your house, locate your vehicle (“When was the last time I saw the car?”), and drive away.
Time for a new home, and new life, a new Heap.
Thank Frank!
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