The junk removal people have come and gone. With them went all the random objects that have been sitting in the backyard at Rock Star Parking, unclaimed and unloved, since last summer’s Floodland truck unloading. In addition, they departed with an assortment of mysterious objects that had taken up residence under the porch for no apparent reason. Why, exactly, did we have two portable charcoal barbecues? Where did that knit bag of rubber stamps come from? Who put that big black plastic bag next to my motorcycle, and what was inside it? (None of us were brave enough to open it and find out.) And what kind of person brings a goddamn swamp cooler to a party and then forgets to take it home again afterward?

Also gone: the massive slab of seating furniture which would have been the first component of the now-cancelled couch-fortress project, the coffee table I’ve disliked since the day my ex-wife surprised me with it, and some bags of clothing which did not belong to any of this house’s past or present occupants. Alas: the cans of paint, piles of lead-acid batteries, and terrifyingly rusty propane cylinder were problems they were unwilling to solve. I guess it’s time to break out the box of thermite.