The downside of rampant consumerism

So, I've got to confess, I've been a little distracted for the past week and a half because I broke my closet.

This has happened to me twice before. Once, when I was living in a crappy old apartment in Gainesville, Florida. But that wasn't because of the volume of my wardrobe -- I was in law school at the time, so pretty much all I wore were t-shirts and jeans -- it was because the apartment was ancient and falling apart. In fact, the apartment burned down a couple of months after I moved out.

The second time was in the current apartment, less than a year ago. I thought they had fixed the problem. Apparently, I was wrong.

It seems that, about two weeks ago, the weight of my clothes -- as well as accessories and handbags -- finally tore the shelf out of the drywall. I noticed that the shelf looked funny sometime that Thursday night, but there was nothing I could really do about it, and I didn't really get a chance to look at it until the next evening. By that time, it was a lost cause, and all I could do was take down all my clothing -- making strategic piles around my apartment, primarily on the kitchen table -- and call maintenance. I then spent part of last weekend rushing around to places like Bed Bath and Beyond to find alternative storage solutions.

When I explained the situation to my dad, the conversation was something like, "Well, how did it happen?" "Rampant consumerism." "What?" "I shop too much, Daddy." "Well, maybe you should stop that."

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Simplify. Whatever.

After patching the drywall and replacing the shelf, the closet was finally finished on Tuesday evening. The maintenance guy left me a sweet little note saying that it will likely happen again if the weight exceeds 30 to 40 pounds. (I meant to scan it and post it, like the mouse note, but I think I threw it out.)

My reaction to that, as expected was "Well,that's great and all, but what the heck am I supposed to do with the other 75 percent of my wardrobe?"

I began to tentatively hang my clothes in the closet, waiting for it to fall apart again. And, for the record, I managed to donate three full trash bags of old clothes to charity. I finished hanging up everything I'm keeping by late Thursday night, but, as it stands now, there's no room for any other single item of clothing.

And yes, I'm waiting for the closet to implode again.