Punch-Trunk Love

Last night, I decided that it was time.

Granted, I had been avoiding this for months, er, years. Most often it was a case of not being close enough to a dumpster or not living on a floor equal to the parking lot. Sure, laziness may have prevailed, but that was not so much because of a lack of energy or interest, but rather the sheer fact that anything else on the planet was more fun than said chore. But on a quiet night at home where Katie had already called shotgun on the remote control (read: Project Runway marathon), I knew what had to be done.

Actually, what had to be done was the replacement of a tail light. There’s no way I’m paying some mechanic 35 bucks to replace a $3 part that I could buy at the store and install myself. But we’re getting off-topic here. In addition to replacing said light, I did something far more impressive.

I cleaned out the trunk of my car.

No, no, I know what you’re thinking. That I’m just waxing overdramatic on something that shouldn’t need to be done in the first place. After all, it’s a trunk, not the inner crevices of the car’s hubcap. It should probably be clean in the first place. Ok, idealists, you can live in your dream world. Just remember to call me when World Peace breaks out and free money falls from the sky.

(checks window for falling dollars) (nope, nothing.)

For the last two years, I’ve made a living out of living out of my car. When grad school still sucked the life out of the back-half of my day, a halftime costume change was often required. That required changes-on-the-go, and therefore, produced an oft-cluttered back seat. The backseat, because of said mobile closet status, quickly became less and less an option for “people to sit.” Like an 18-wheeler, my Accord became a 2-passenger vehicle in a hurry.

But when in a pinch, I could magically find 2-3 more seats with the moving of everything into the backseat into the trunk. The clothes would come inside regularly, but anything else that was dismissed to the depths of my trunk, was lost forever. Or at least until last night.

You see, for those of you who drive SUVs, your trunk is visible to all, and must be kept with the same detailed cleanliness of the rest of the car. And for those of you who built enormous, dramastically loud sub-woofers for the back of your SAABs, there’s simply no room for anything else. And a small sect of you actually use it as additional storage, for lesser-used items like your rollerblades or golf clubs. You probably access your trunk way more often than I ever have. This is why such a task turned from minimal to monstrous over the course of the last year.

Here are the Strangest 3 Things to be Excised from my Trunk last night:

3. A stack of mail from around September 2004. Since I pay my bills online, and hadn’t quite figured out how to stop the paper bills from coming, I had a nice, unopened cable invoice and an invitation to join the GW Fencing Club. Um, I guess I declined.

2. Various CD jewel cases. Since the world of CD sleeve books is upon us, the plastic cases often end up in the back seat, and shortly thereafter, the trunk. Funniest one I found: 2Gether. Want a copy, Smith?

1. My former computer, Cameron. Yes, the tower desktop that preceded the laptop Attica moved out of Random Run, but never made it up four flights of stairs to old apartment. And as I bid it farewell last night, it won’t make it to our new place, either. RIP, Cameron.