by Nancy Canfield

Created on: July 24, 2009

The latest project is cleaning out the attic. I stupidly volunteer before I can stop myself. When I have my nose in my laptop I find if I occasionally nod and grunt when someone is talking to me, it passes as a response. Apparently my sister saves big questions until she is sure I am enveloped in writing, and I get bamboozled. It's OK, though, revenge is a dish best served cold.

To begin with, no house should have an attic. A third floor is fine because there are these things called stairs which are used as access. Our attic has its access inside a tiny closet in my sister's bedroom. She actually keeps a step ladder in this closet, not that she would want to get up there unless she needed a "Howdy Doody" spoon or vintage 1962 prom dress minus the hoop skirt.

Neither my sister or I are delicately sized anymore, but we have a system. She pushes my big fat butt upward as I grasp at the ventilation pipe just inches away to haul myself up through the hole in the closet ceiling. Now, this is no easy task because, not only is the closet filled with my hand me downs which she confiscates from trash bags after I throw them away, but I am holding my coffee cup, cigarettes, and the phone. I plan on staying up there a while.

After I finally manage to wrap an elbow around the pipe, I give her the go-ahead to pick my bad leg up off of step three and place it on step two being careful not to twist my bad knee. That gives me enough leverage to wiggle myself up through the postage stamp size opening. Once I pop through, I need a minute to regain my strength and my breath. Then, assuming my vertigo is cooperating, I stand spread eagle over the hole and grab my sister's arm to give her some help. She is telling me now what she would have done differently and I consider just dropping her, but she's the only one who knows where things are.

Our first task is to tackle the plastic tubs labeled Christmas decorations located in the northeast corner next to the left-over yellowed ceiling tiles and what looks to be a small toadstool. The first one we open contains parts to the sewing machine that I threw out because I couldn't find the attachments. Under those are several stacks of report cards, birthday cards, anniversary cards and sympathy cards. I comment that it was too bad there weren't any Visa cards. I'm not getting a response because my sister is busy looking for the toadstool. She gets easily distracted.

We manage to go through a few storage tubs, repacking and re-labeling

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