As winter turns to spring, my step gets lighter along with the days. The sun, rising higher in the sky, casts bright rays through our front window, warming the house with their soft glow.
    Then with sinking heart I spy winter’s grime on the panes and the joy of the new season quickly turns to thoughts of mops and pails and the annual spring rite.
    Spring might be summer’s promise with days becoming longer, but it is also a time to clean up, clear out and chivvy the old man into sorting out the garage.
    Our garage is a clearing house of sorts in the spring, although anything that goes into it doesn’t usually go much further. Consequently our two vehicles, removed from their warm enclave, remain outside to face the elements.
    Each spring I try and remove the detritus in the garage, the result of years of do-it-yourself car repairs, home renovations, sporting relics and heaven only knows what else (some of the stuff was actually carted down from our previous garage in Kapuskasing and that’s going back 17 years), but to no avail.
    “That might come in useful. You can’t get those any more. No, that stays,” are just some of the arguments thrust my way.
    Even the closet built into the corner of the garage to house out-of-season garb is full of my other half’s old coats. One is at least 20 years old. It’s down-fi lled and the hood is fur-lined. In Kapuskasing where temps could easily hover around minus 40 for a month, it was a godsend, but in relatively balmy Muskoka, it’s just taking up space and no doubt providing a cosy home to all manner of little creatures.
    Can I get rid of it, though? Not on your life.
    I will admit to being a bit of a pack rat myself when it comes to clothes, but at least they are hidden away in a big trunk in the basement (I call it my tickle trunk), just in case fashion should repeat itself in a decade or so. My better half, on the other hand, has shoes he hasn’t been able to get his feet into for 10 years or more. About four pairs have made the trip from his closet to the garage, but there they sit collecting dust.
    Just recently, I picked up an old pair of winter boots that were worn and missing all the laces.
    “Can I at least get rid of these?” I asked.
    “No. There’s nothing wrong with them that new laces won’t fi x,” he said.
    I produced a pair of boot laces. He said they were the wrong colour. How he would know that when the boots are covered in grime I shall never know. But he won. The boots went back on the shelf.
    Then there’s his closet. After nagging for about four weeks to sort out what clothes should go to charity, I decided to do my own sorting. Riffl ing through shirts, pants, jackets, etc., I placed on the bed garments that had not seen the light of day in half a decade.
    “I got fed up waiting for you, so I’ve been through your stuff and what I think you won’t, or shouldn’t, wear again is on the bed. Can you at least just look at it?” I asked
    Five minutes later he appeared with an injured look on his face. In his hand was an old, blue velour cardigan that by any stretch wouldn’t fi t now.
    “I’m keeping this,” he said.
    “What on earth for? It’s desperately out of fashion and probably wouldn’t even fi t me,” I told him.
    “My brother gave me this 20 years ago. There’s a lot of history here. It stays,” he said with a stubborn jut of the chin.
    I should have known that eventually my attempts of clearing out his possessions would come back to haunt me. On the first balmy Sunday morning last spring we agreed to clean out the garden shed. An hour later the shed was empty and everything that had been packed in it over the winter months was piled up on the lawn.
    “Right,” said my other half. “This is the fi rst thing that goes to the dump.” And he picked up my old bicycle.
    The relic in question is an old blue and white gearless CMC that was 25 years old when I bought it for $25 about 30 years ago.
    “You can’t get rid of that,” I shrieked. “That’s an antique. One day it might be worth a lot of money.”
    “Meantime it’s a useless piece of scrap that doesn’t work and it’s taking up space,” he said.
    I groaned and gave in: “Okay, okay. You can keep that cruddy old cardigan, but let me keep the bike.”
    A couple of hours later there were three separate piles on the lawn; the stuff we were keeping, the stuff we were throwing out, and the stuff we couldn’t agree should go or stay and would live to see another debate.
    “See. That wasn’t so hard. How about we try again with the garage next weekend?” I suggested.
    “Don’t push your luck,” he shot back. “If you agree to stay out of my garage I’ll say nothing about all your stuff you’ve got hiding in the basement.”