The tall step ladder hovers over me every time I enter the garage. It lurks like a bird of prey ready to swoop. It used to lean against a wall like a kid on the street corner. Then Hubby began finding a place for everything and putting it all away. The experts on YouTube showed him how to rig a system of pulleys and hooks to tug and lock that ladder against the ceiling.
The ladder feels ready to bump me off before I reach the car.
It hasn’t … not yet. But then, I always duck a bit to avoid it capturing my head between its rungs.
I know it cannot actually grab me because I checked out the line securing it to the wall. Unless we have a curious kid unwind and unknot that rope, the ladder will hang securely, as will all the other tools, cords and devices hanging on our garage’s once bare walls. Somehow in the last forty years, the tools have gathered recruits and been assigned stations until they cover all the walls. They used to hug the floor. Now, with the assistance of hooks, nails and screws each has a place on a wall.
The ones alongside the driver’s side of the van stubbornly protect their turf. They refuse to budge if I walk between them and Hubby’s mini-van. When he approaches to enter the mini-van, those tools challenge every step he takes. Neatly wound electrical cords tighten into lassoos. Battery chargers dare him to knock them off their cradles. Shovels and rakes tenuously await a careless nudge to rock them off their hooks onto his head.
Ten or fifteen years ago we exiled the large bookshelf at the head of our bed from the house and nailed it to high on the wall in front of the vehicles. It deserved the exile. That bookshelf used to dump books onto my head in the middle of the night. Now it restrains a variety of bottles, jars, and rusty tin cans holding liquids and solids that might be needed for building or transportation maintenance. In case the handy man has a question, it also reserves a bit of shelf space for carpentry and car repair how-to books and manuals.
The idea for hanging stuff that gets in our way began back when we had a collection of kid bikes. It must have been after the kids did not ride bike much because when they had bikes, the bikes took up posts along the driveway, porch and lawn. At some point Hubby screwed impressively strong hooks in the ceiling above where I parked my automobile and hung unused bikes there crowding my view. They never fell, and they left me plenty of space for parking. Whenever I wanted to remove a bike back then (or a lawn chair now), I wrestled with the hook to let it go. I don’t wrestle with bikes these days. Partly because we no longer own any. And partly because wrestling with the plastic dumpster in January proved that I am not capable of winning wrestling matches with equipment.
After we no longer needed bikes, the hooks begged for attention, so hubby gave them lawn chairs to hold.
Which may also explain why I have not attempted to ask the two lawn mowers parked beside my car to move. Both hug the wall on the passenger side of my car. With my expertise in klutziness, I fear I will run into them someday.
Hopefully I won’t, at least not as long as we have a place for everything and everything is in its place. For now I slip my car into its designated spot in the full garage and never worry about a thing … except that ladder hovering over my head.