My Stupid Life:THE DISINTEGRATE(teaser)

I've read that in ancient times, kings and pharaohs were buried with all of their belongings. I think they thought you could get away with it back then. Your possessions will accompany you into the afterlife.

Well, if I get buried with all of MY JUNK.

Later on, I will REGRET it.

Mom wants me to perform some spring cleaning so she can get rid of the items I don't use. That sounded like a decent plan until I realised how much stuff I actually have.

I spent the entire morning going through my closet, and it's amazing how much stuff there was.

And it wasn't like it was ORGANIZED in any way.

Since we initially moved in, I've basically been throwing things in my closet.

It was like going through my childhood as I was digging through my closet. And the further back I travelled, the longer it took me in TIME.

The junk in the front of the closet, such as homework assignments and comic novels, was all stuff I'd thrown in there throughout the last year. But after I got those out of the way, I started remembering things I'd forgotten about.

I discovered a model rocket I received for my tenth birthday and a Halloween costume I wore a few years ago. And there were a few additional things I hadn't realised I still owned.

I discovered something I thought I'd lost YEARS ago until I dug a little deeper. In third grade, I had a binder full of stickers that I had collected.

I used to be very obsessed with stickers, particularly scratch-and-sniff ones. I gathered all of the GOOD fragrances, such as bubble gum and cotton candy, but I also had all of the very GROSS ones.

So, if a kid on my block wanted to know what LION poop or rotten meat loaf smelled like, they'd come to ME.

I was relieved when I finally made it to the back of my closet, but I was also a little disappointed.

I remember reading a novel as a youngster about these kids who could travel to another WORLD by browsing through their closet, and I always wondered if I could do the same with MINE.

However, I was concerned that whoever lived on the other side of the fence might not be pleased with me for putting all of my garbage in there over the years.

When I told Mom I was finished cleaning my closet today, she told me I needed to sort everything into three piles: one to keep, one to donate, and one to discard. But I figured that if I had to get rid of anything, I might as well make some money. So I decided to have a YARD SALE.

Mom thought it was a fantastic suggestion. So she gave me a magazine that had all sorts of tips for how to do it RIGHT.

However, all of the concepts in the magazine were corny and outdated. There was a section on how to make a sign to attract visitors to your yard sale, and all of the samples they provided were quite boring.

I realised I needed to do something a little more EYE-CATCHING if I wanted folks to actually show up at my yard sale. So I slapped up a sign I was confident would work.

I printed a few copies of my sign and went around the neighbourhood distributing them. But Mom intervened just as I was about to walk out the front door.

Mom made me construct signs that looked more like the ones in the magazine, and I attached them to some telephone poles on our street once they were ready. Then I brought everything down from my room and began arranging everything on some plastic tables.

Each table had its own category, like “clothes” and “books” and that kind of stuff. But some stuff wasn’t easy to label, so I had to get creative.

I had a number of gifts from my grandparents and elder relatives that I'd never touched before, so I gathered them all on one table.

I also had some birthday cards that were still in wonderful condition. So I covered my name with white-out and placed them on their own table.

I moved all of my damaged toys to a different table and hoped that some tiny kids who couldn't read would come to the yard sale.

I placed all my miscellaneous belongings, including marbles and few pencil stubs, inside some tube socks and thumb tacked them to a table.

I also made a table full of stuff for people who had money to burn.

I set aside a table for all of my past arts-and-crafts projects, just in case some youngsters needed a gift for their parents but didn't want to put in the effort.

But, I had to deal with an even bigger problem all of a sudden. It began to RAIN, and everyone began to return to their cars.

I was scared that I wouldn't be able to get this many people to a yard sale again, and I needed to sell SOMETHING to make the effort worthwhile. So I walked around and marked down the pricing on every item.

Then it started pouring buckets, and I realised I'd have to do something drastic.

I stuffed a bunch of things into BOXES and gave even better deals. But by that time, it was too late.

I knew that if I didn't get my belongings inside, they'd all be ruined.

But, till I got back, everything is ruined.