A Time To Clean

My minivan is mostly a work vehicle for the property preservation work I do now. It has tools and tarps, bungee cords, a folding ladder, extension cords in various sizes, pieces of wood and plywood, plumbing supplies, an air compressor, locks and a lot of stuff I’ve picked up along the way that I needed for one job or another and has been riding around with me ever since. I do a thorough cleaning about twice a year where I take everything out, reorganize, get rid of things I no longer recognize or have a need for. It takes about a day. The periods between the clean-outs Pat refers to the van as a Black Hole – like the ones in space – anything that goes in there disappears and you don’t see it again until clean-out day.

There’s some truth to what she says. There are times something I need is buried in there, know I have it, remember buying it and I have no idea where it is. That’s when I realize it’s time to clean. I usually get around to it a couple of months later, after more things have joined the pile and I have trouble seeing out the back window. Sometimes, though, there’s an added motivation.

Chris and I were working on a house in a section of St Paul where a lot of immigrants live. I needed a tool and knew I had one in the van. The van was fairly full and I started at the top, pulling, re-piling, pushing things aside. I’d burrowed deep and heard a hiss. A fire extinguisher somewhere in the middle had lost its pin and my last re-shuffle pushed the handle into the ‘Let ‘er rip’ position. I took the blast full in the face. My glasses shielded my eyes but I was blinded from the lenses out

The extinguisher shot out a light colored powder with a greenish tinge and my first thought was, ‘This doesn’t taste very good.’ I can’t even think of what to compare it to except “Yuck.” I backed out of the van, pulled my glasses off`and turned toward the house as a group of Hatians were walking by. They saw me, started screaming and ran down the sidewalk. I found out later they thought I was a Voodoo god. Not one of the nicer ones.

It took a while to brush the powder away, at least enough to go back to work. I was still dusting bits off most the rest of the day. And I scheduled Saturday for a clean-out.