Garages

Maybe I will blog about garages and stir up “hate and discontent.” (See NineranchMom’s previous comment.)

The saga of the garage has been a long and ongoing debate with my family. It’s probably fair to say that I have “garage issues” because of it. The first time we actually had a real garage was when we built “The House.”

The House has a two-car garage. With two separate doors. Plus storage space. And a regular door to the exterior. And it was insulated. And painted, not just bare sheetrock. This is a great garage. And at the time we built and moved into The House, I had my own vehicle. I quickly determined that I would, indeed, be parking in said garage. There was a minor power struggle with Dad, but since his job took him away from home for most of the week, he didn’t need the garage anyway. It would’ve been wasteful to let the “Left Side” sit empty all week while he was at work.

But this is where the problems start. Not everyone believes that garages are made to park a car in. Webster’s Dictionary specifically defines a garage as “a shelter…for automotive vehicles.” This is what a garage is meant for, people. You park cars in it. Cars that you drive on a regular basis, more specifically. Therefore, I, personally, myself, with my own two hands, had to clean out the designated Left Side of the garage in order to park my car inside, where it clearly belonged. And thus the continuous struggle to keep the Left Side clear for my car remained until I married Husband and moved out. Curly then inherited the Left Side, and continued in the battle.

Each home Husband and I have lived in/owned has had a garage. And the cars have always been parked inside. Lots of people choose to use their garages for storage, and park in the driveway. That’s fine if that’s what they’d like to do. My theory is that I am making a mortgage payment for that space each month, and I’ll not pay a mortgage for the purpose of storing junk. Within 2 days of moving into a house, the garage is clear and clean, ready for the Husband and Superchikk vehicles to be placed in their perfect spots and a wiffle-golf-ball hung in the appropriate spot as a place marker. Sure, we have stuff in our garage. But it must never become so much as to force the cars outside. It is their home.

The garage saga at The House continues to this day, with only one or two people in the household even somewhat pleased with the current garage situation. Oh, sure, Mom still parks in the garage. But the Left Side is now home to a piece of non-working, all-terrain type of machinery. I’m sure that now that Curly is gone, Trump would like to claim her rightful place on the left side, but hasn’t been able to stage a coup as of yet. The day will come…she’s just biding her time.