On Thinking about Things and Moving and Inspired by the Thoughts of Thoreau...

"Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's effects, for his life had not been ineffectual:--'the evil that men do lives after them.'--As usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust."--Henry David Thoreau, Walden ("Economy," 54)

Well-spoken. But what now?

Some might argue that I am young and that it is not too late.

Young? How?

Do you not know that I bear the ancient genes of frugal New Englanders in every digital hair and attached earlobe of my body, that I carry the generations-old, thrifty, conscientious whispers of "you might just need that later... better hang on to it," in my already well-entrenched cogitation pathways, that a book by one of my favorite essayists sits in the room next to my own, titled String to Short to Be Saved, and tells the story of a box with just such a label found in one of Thoreau's "dust hole" type attics... with just such hapless string particles inside?

I have never liked yard sales all that much, but that does not make me any more of a hope case. I simply cannot bring myself to go that public and especially anytime the word "rummage" appears on signs I feel the guilty need to bolt around the nearest corner. But you have not seen me furtively creeping along the wall out of my dormitory room to the unofficially titled "free tables" in the upstairs lobbies, nose twitching, beady eyes darting, ready to sidle nonchalantly past with only a glance if the door should open, ready to run back to my nest, rat-tail trailing behind me, if suspicion should arise, but eager to just see what's on that table. It might be something useful.

I do wonder what dried tapeworms I have collecting dust in the crannies of my room... But I fear a greater problem. What about the carefully dessicated giraffes that will crumple even the loaded bumper of my toy truck?

And I will dismiss the first solution that comes to mind as impossible: Perhaps those giraffes would be happier staying with my parents in Vermont. No! Even there the frequent rain would cause their exponential and hydrated growth into complete giants, not merely dried ones.