I began by calling Target and Wal-Mart to see whose bins were cheaper. My first call was to Target, and after ten minutes of holding, I got to talk to Idiot Woman.
"Hi," I said, beginning to weary of repeating myself to various Target personnel. "I'm looking for clear plastic storage bins in the 10 to 15 gallon range. How much are yours?"
"10 to 15 gallon?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Umm...how many quarts is that?"
The folks at Wal-Mart were slightly more knowledgeable, and as their product was cheaper, I bought myself half a dozen 56-quart bins (that's 14 gallons, Idiot Woman) and headed home, looking forward to an afternoon of killing my lower lumbar region.
Then I noticed the yellow indicator on my dashboard. The one telling me to check my engine.
Suffice it to say that I didn't start packing books until close to 5 PM, as I spent the afternoon sitting in the lounge at the Volkswagen dealership while the mechanics replaced a corroded valve. The nice guy who ran my diagnostics threw in some new hoses, gratis, while he was at it, so the afternoon wasn't a complete waste.
After dinner, I got through the first few cartons and the contents of my bedside chest, then realized I had been hopelessly optimistic with my six-bin estimate and returned to Wal-Mart for another six. The garage is now stacked with nine new plastic bins, most full of my books from high school, college, and grad school, while two are holding my sister's old course packets and French novels (which are mercifully small - thanks, Larouse) and the last is now the repository for my mother's old promo tapes, audition tapes, and other material in casette formats I've never seen before. Only a few will play on a standard VCR. As for the rest, I've no real idea what's on them, but since they date from the early eighties, my guess would be big hair and shoulder pads.
(Love you, Mom. Just not the polka-dot dress.)
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