If men are from Mars...then,

Mars is junked the hell up. What is with men wanting to keep everything and anything from the past 50 years?? We near-about had WWIII at my house last night. We were attempting to clean up our outside room. This is funny, because every morning around 7 a.m., dad starts mumbling about how we need to clean our house. Every time we go to clean, however, dad throws a fit about us moving things to where he can’t find it, or getting rid of things that “we need.”

The argument began with me and mom asking my dad to move his toolbox out of the bathroom (we didn’t even mention the dog supplies and pool equipment that was in there). I should probably mention that we haven’t been able to use this bathroom in about a year…because of the junk. Our simple question spun dad off in a tizzy. He started mumbling stuff like “Why does it always have to be MY stuff that’s gotta be moved?” and “Why can’t you move some of YOUR stuff?” and the best one was (however irrational) “Why don’t we just leave the door unlocked? Because if burglars ever came to our house, they would have the tools to break in right there.” I kept my mouth shut…I SO wanted to say “Hell, if they got past our gate, they probably had their OWN dang tools.” Anyways, he never moved it. I had to pick it up myself and move it outside.

He did, however, go out and start looking (and digging) in our “trash pile” to see if we were throwing out anything good. He happened across the pool/lounge chair that my sister had gotten last year. (She had forgotten to take the tag off of it, even though she had used it all last year). This spun him off into the rant about being wasteful, and throwing away stuff that was still new and good. He yelled across at my sister, as she was riding her horse, and asked if it was really broken. She yelled back and said that the last time she used it, she had had to prop the head up with a cement block because it was broken (At this point, I was torn between laughing hysterically and shaking my head in shame…because Lord, we were startin’ to sound like a bunch of poor white trash). Then, after seeing that he was going nowhere with the broken lounge chair argument, he went around picking stuff up out of our yard (towels that had just fallen off the line, rugs that were out there to be beaten, chairs that we take to all Rheba’s horse events) asking if it too needed to be “hauled off to the dump.” I might mention here that I DO believe that I get my flair for drama from the Sheffield’s side. I will say that I was a bit concerned that after I stepped out of the room, that he would toss my computer or cell phone into that trash pile….seeing as how we needed to get rid of some of our stuff, too.

After ignoring his rants for a good solid 30 minutes, he finally huffed off to start mowing. After he had walked out, my mama (I love her) says “You might not get the chance to send him to the home, I might just beat you to it.” In telling this to my friend Sam tonight, she responded by saying that the CNA’s at the nursing home would HAVE to get a raise to deal with ol’ Cornbread.

Yeah, I’m not sure what it is about men being pack rats….but most of the ones that I know are just that. They couldn’t part with anything to save their lives. I just know that in my house, we have to wait until my dad is out of the house before we can start throwing his stuff away. –We just recently got rid of some of his 30”-waist pants…as well as his old biking shorts (rolling my eyes)…and he still about had a fit.

Yep, my bet is that if men are from Mars…Mars is packed with old, ratty t-shirts, “yard work-only tennis shoes,” pants that have been too tight for ages, leisure suits, 8-Track tapes, Jerry Clower and Tammy Wynette Cassettes, viking helmets and high-rise socks.