The Happy Geek guest posts on Motherscribe

Whenever I read The Happy Geek, I am tempted to pull up stakes and move to Canada. Aaahh...Canada. What IS it about those Canadians? They have that ...something. Less angst? More able to poke fun at themselves? I'm not sure, but I do know one thing. Happy Geek is a delight! Enjoy her guest post today...
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Hey. This is Happy Geek. I blog at The Happy Geek. I know, I am a fountain of originality.

I was utterly delighted when JCK asked me to write this post as it gave me another reason to put off cleaning out my husband's filing cabinet. Mind you, it's been put off for 4 years, what's one more weekend?

I know, some of you are asking "why are YOU cleaning out his filing cabinet?" Well, let's see, last week I needed a copy of our 2007 tax return. Couldn't find it. Even after 30 minutes of searching. The 1997 one, I found that one right away. That's when I snapped. I decided that after 4 years of nagging and crabbing I was gonna have to do it myself. Right that moment. However, once I got started I realized that this cabinet is the thing that nightmares are made of.

I am not usually a terribly anal person. I don't aim for perfection because trust me honey, I will never get there, but I cannot stand clutter. I am a HUGE fan of streamlining. My motto, "when in doubt, throw it out." If you are a pack rat, chances are good that we cannot be friends. I already have one rather large pack rat to deal with and I made a vow to stay with him forever. He's really all I can handle. I love my hubby dearly, but I tell you, looking back I would have re-wrote those wedding vows just a little bit.

In hindsight I would have made it clearer that I was having and holding just him, not his classroom notes from every class he took from fourth grade on. (I only wish I was kidding.) The man has a PhD and we have pretty much every paper, note and project he has ever done in his academic career.

Some of you may be asking, "Hey, I want to be your friend, how do I know if I am a pack rat?"

I have a simple test.

1. Count all the thermoses in your house. (This includes the ones in your garage, shed and camper.)

2. Subtract the number of people in your household.

3. Subtract the number of times you have used said thermoses in the last three months.

If you wind up with a positive number, you are a packrat.

If you are still saying "well, there are four in the shed, three in the cupboard downstairs, the two in the kitchen...," Congratulations, you are a packrat with issues.

Anyway, the filing cabinet. It would be one thing if he was an organized packrat, I might let him keep all his swimming certificates from elementary school, but when they are shoved into a folder with the manual for my stove and a picture of his dog when he was five, well, it's all got to go. Yes, the manual can go too, we no longer have that stove. We sold it with our condo. In 1998.

And that is just one folder. We have two drawers full of these. Guess what I shall be doing for the next week or so. My life is truly glamorous.

So, thank-you JCK for a chance to visit Motherscribe, chit chat with your friends and pretend to be in California. I even wore my sunscreen. Hey, when you live in Alberta you pretend a lot.

You pretend that the first snowfall will not be in less than 2 months, pretend that there are beaches, pretend that the prairies really are beautiful.

Now I should really get back to this filing cabinet. Anyone got a flame thrower?

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