My Da called the other day to announce a friend of his was getting rid of his G5 Mac Tower, would I be interested?

Deep inside me, somewhere near the core of my soul, right next to revulsions and unexplainable desire, a strand of my persona twanged as if a horny romantic lute player strummed his instrument to get poon. Computer parts for sale? Oh? Must. Get.

I’m no collector of electronics but I know someone who has an actual server in his living room… and I am so jealous. I could easily turn my office into that apartment from the movie Pi. Untethered, I definitely would have one machine for fun, a machine for storage, a machine for music, a machine for gaming, a machine for graphics and a machine to look at porn. I keep my addiction in check, thankfully, otherwise I doubt I would be married right now.

My Da snaps me back to reality: “Are you interested?” The computer is about 2 years old. No mention of monitor or keyboard or hard drive size or RAM. Or price for that matter. The lute player strums harder. Hell yeah, I’m interested!

Hell ya! But then suddenly I remember my grandfather. When he left this mortal coil, the family was charged with emptying out his 4 car garage, which was full to the rafters not with cars (I think there was only two cars in it), but with …stuff. Grandfather was an A-List pack rat and had no control over his hoarding. No one to say “Put that back!” Sure Grandmother would say the odd remark about the garage, but she really had no dominance over his addiction. The family decided to have a huge garage sale on the front lawn of the house and in the process of bringing stuff out, they found 14 gas powered lawn mowers. Fourteen. One Four. Da said that maybe two worked. Tops. I was living in England at the time and I saw pictures of the hoard – quality stuff like an intact moose head, barely moth eaten and a top had that would have made Taco cry. In addition to the vault of stuff, they found that grandfather had opened up several bank accounts just to get the free toasters/kettles/appliances. Not to sure how many accounts he had in the Greater Toronto, but there were many appliances. And most were in the garage.

Was I interested? Hell.. yeah?

My thoughts go to my Da himself. A while back he had so much artwork on his walls his condo rivaled The Louvre. In his retired travels he dragged art back from Mexico, China and other parts of the world. He’s since reformed but he does have one piece of art hanging beneath a window sill. Yes, beneath, below the line of sight just because, well… there was a big blank wall spot, I guess. I often wonder if there is another apartment in his name in the city somewhere, full of Dawn Snells, David Hockey prints and Toller Cranston limited editions, to be discovered posthumously, via an unmarked key left in a shoe box under his bed. Currently, he volunteers at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramics’ gift shop and slowly, slowly, his condo is filling up with bowls, cups, nick-nacks and most recently, a $2500 statue that was busted in storage and given to him by the manager. I can hear the ghost of his father coo into his ear: “‘It is still gooooood! Glue the haaaaand back on!”

Then I think of the storage locker I have down the street. Five 60L Rubbermaid containers that hold 30 or so pieces of mouth blown glass. One 90L Rubbermaid that holds approximately $1000 in robot toys. A milk crate of British import records.

“Uh. No thanks,” I conceded. The horny lute player cries.