Maybe Canada Will Take It

Sometimes it's just easier to clear everything out and start over.

Everyone has a room in their house -- a cellar, attic, den, pantry, closet -- where the stuff just accumulates.

You've lived in the house for 10 or 15 or 20 years and it has always gravitated to this room. Some of it worthwhile like the Complete Works of P G Wodehouse. Some of it not, like Shakespeares Sonnets for Sleepless Souls.

Over the years you've tried to keep at it, keep some sort of order in the room. Tried to keep it neat and organized.

But, of course, between work and vacations and daughter's ballet recitals and music lessons and Little League and soccer and track meets and rugby matches it has often gotten away from you. And the things pile up until you're reaching over a table to get at the bookshelf. But you let it go because there are far more pressing matters to attend to and besides, no one besides you really sees the room and it's not hurting anyone as is.

Until they day you're reaching over the table for The Ginger Man and that damn book of Sonnets falls on your head.

It's then, amid the cussing and swearing, that you realize you can't just rearrange things anymore. You have to clear everything out and start over because you just can't fit another piece of shit in this room.

And so you strip the shelves bare, move everything to the floor (if you can find it) or another room. And you begin to put back only those things that are really necessary, worthwhile or mean something to you (like your wedding album the saving of which is as much self preservation as wanting to keep it because, c'mon, have you really looked at it in the last 15 years?).

Everything else? All that other shit? In the trash. Give it to the neighbors. Have a yard sale. Whatever.

And that's what's happening now, when Pastorius says Obama may be the best thing to happen to America.

Obama fell on our heads and now Americans have finally woken up and realized the soccer game is not as important as the preservation of The American Photo Album, which Uncle Barry thinks you should toss out.

It's time to empty the room. Save and preserve only that which is important, worthwhile and dear to us. They're saying it through the Tea Party movement and many other venues, actually starting to pay attention to what's going on.

They're saying it's time to empty everything out and start over. Stack it on the floor, figure out what to keep and what to trash.

Maybe Canada will want it. Or we could try to sell it to Mexico for 50 cents.

But we just can't fit another piece of shit in this room.

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