STUFF

A house is just a place to keep your stuff
while you go out and get more stuff.
If you didn't have so much stuff,
you wouldn't need a house.
you could just walk around all the time.

George Carlin

Remember when you had stuff?

You probably had so much stuff, your stuff had stuff.

Your laptop had it's own leather carrying case. The leather boots had that snazzy silk lined crinkle drawrstring pouch . The pocket size spray cologne was snuggled in a discreet little silver tube. Even your bag had a a bag to disguise the fact that you carried a bag.

Oh, yeah, and if you owned a car. Boy, that car needed a lot of stuff.

And all of that exercise gear. And the shoes to go with that gear. And the bag to carry all of the shoes and gear.

And then, the Pet. Whether it was Fido the dog, or Crystal, the cat, when they had to go to the pet shelter when your life tanked, you had to cart all of their stuff right along with them.

And then the techno bling stuff. Whew. Hard to tell which beep was going off from which piece of all of that techno bling stuff you had to carry around to stay connected with all of the other techno bling stuff droids.

And now that you're a street puppy, you still have stuff. Different stuff.

Toothbrushes, razors, washclothes, t-shirts, baby wipes, six or so cigarette lighters, dirty socks, clean socks, ponchos, hoodies and ski caps and raggedy levis. And candy bars, and old bus tickets, and canteens and chewing gum, and 3 month old packs of peanuts

And you have to carry most of it around with you.

Now, how much stuff you carry around depends on if you have a Place....or a Spot.

A Place is where, maybe you will be staying for awhile. Inside.

It could be an abandoned house. A friend's sofa. A car or (yippee!) a whole van.

Or, oh gawd, one of those temporary, emergency shelters.

The point of a Place is that it is inside, and thus meets the criteria for sleeping inside. Except for the temporary, emergency shelters.

They meet the criteria of please help me before I eat my shoes and set myself on fire.

A Spot is where you will be staying outside, maybe just the night, or until the police find you.

It could be a viaduct, a cozy hedgerow, an underpass, or (yippee!) a porch.

The point of a Spot is that it is outside, and thus meets the criteria for sleeping outside .

Now, the thing with your stuff is deciding when and if you can leave it in the Place where it would be inside....or the Spot, where it would be outside.

You don't have to decide if you can leave it in the temporary, emergency shelter, because if you do, the androids who work there will eat your shoes and set the rest of your stuff on fire.

It's a tough decision. And it depends upon how many days you really want to go without being able to brush your teeth or change your clothes, or barefoot, if your stuff is discovered, and the person who discovers it decides they need your stuff so they carry it to their own Place or Spot.

If you have a Place, you could possibly put your stuff into a closet, next to the friend's sofa, or on the seat of the car or the van before you lock it. If the lock is broken you can stuff one of your dirty socks into the broken window to make it look like it is locked.

If you have a Spot,unless you can find a tree whose branches are sturdy enough and high enough to conceal stuff without busting your arms getting it up or down from there, or a bush so thick with growth only you can possibly know it's there, it's better to carry your stuff around with you.

And remember, you can't have too much stuff with you, because you have to travel light.

Because you never know when you're going to have to run real fast, and also because if you carry too much stuff...you're going to experience a phenomenon ER doctors describe as "Your legs have swollen to three times their normal size because you're carrying too much stuff."

Now, see, as strange as it may seem. that's because you've been accumulating more stuff.

Go figure. Here you are, you just lost all your real good stuff. Then you got the rather shoddy stuff. And now, it seems you have more shoddy stuff than you had when you had real good stuff.

It's Alfred E. Newton's Law of The Diminishing Value of Stuff.

Which reads: When the total value of your accumulation of stuff does not total the value of your first contribution from the Tooth Fairy, you don't have enough stuff.

The whole point here, is to get rid of all the stuff that is weighing you down, and preventing you from running faster, and causing your legs to swell, or, making you worry all day if the sock stuffed into the unlocked door of the van is going to fool anybody who wants to steal your stuff.

Or worry if, the bough in the tree, where you hid all your stuff is going to break, or a nosy road dawg is going to sniff out your stuff behind that leafy bush.

Here you are, in homeless nation, and you're still worrying about stuff.

And it is time for ole' Alfred E. Newton's Law of Accelerating Stuff.

Which reads: When the mass of your accumulated stuff exceeds the length of any bough on a tree which is low enough for you to reach without busting your arms, throw all of the stuff into the river.