Don’t Bump the Furniture by Dr. Juan Harrison

Don’t Bump The Furniture

Alan Jackson used to sing a song that said it’s alright to be little bitty.  Most of us didn’t have much problem with that idea when we first married.  Everything was little bitty except our love for one another.  One day I was looking around our house after almost 50 years of marriage feeling a little claustrophobic.  In recent years my wife’s preschool took over my Gunsmoke watching room.  Her school room takes up every inch of the den and has oozed out, threatening to take over the adjoining little dining room.  My office has almost been backed into a corner as her backpacks, lunch kits, seasonal decorations cast a buzzard’s shadow greedily looking at my cluttered desk and file cabinet like that little old boll weevil just looking for a home.

Some of y’all may find your scrapbooking or quilt making has taken over part of your house.  Maybe you’re into African violets or doing watercolors.  We’ve got a house full of furniture and stuff that a lot of it you just look at.  My wife says it’s a woman thing.  She’s talking to someone content to sleep on a hide-abed and drink from styrofoam or a red Solo cup.  We’re about to reach capacity at our house.  The closet is starting to whisper, “Help, I can barely breathe.”  I mean it seems like almost every inch of space is occupied.  Much like the bed of my El Camino, everything almost has to have its own space.   

I don’t dare say anything or I’ll have to endure the bane of another Garage Sale.  I’ll choose colonoscopy.  So, we live on.  I say live on, but we do most of that in the back bedroom sitting on the couch, eating off TV trays and watching the newest, biggest TV where Andy and Barney and Fox News personnel almost seem to have joined us for a good meal and fellowship.

Isn’t it almost silly how much junk most of us have accumulated.  I feel sorry for the young ones who have to go put it on the driveway and sell it for 50 cents or maybe give it away at the final estate/garage sale.  Some things will have a circle on em from a tea glass with no coaster.  A dresser may have a rough place or two where you drag your keys or loose change over it for fifty years.

I’m old.  I don’t really like change.  I think it’s easier to just leave things where they are in the house.  I started on the attic once but got sidetracked.  Never know when my son might need those campaign signs again or that highchair might come in handy for the great grandbabies of the future.  There’s a sense of security for the family at Thanksgiving and Christmas when they see the furniture still in place from last year.  Don’t want to shake things up.  Reckon it’s time for Mama and me to put on our night caps and mosey down the hall and try to crawl into bed without accidentally kicking something or knocking something into the floor.  Got to be careful making these midnight runs from the bed to the water closet.

 By Dr. Juan Harrison