Jul 23, 2021 4 min read

Have you read the funnies lately?

Each Saturday morning, I look forward to my Sunday paper. I hurriedly turn to the funnies and my eyes always go to Zits. The comic teenage antics of Jeremy amuses me particularly when his mom tells him to clean up his room. His closet is pouring out stuff across his splattered room, which is almost ceiling high with junk. He is spread across that closet door trying to hold it shut. I find myself identifying with this situation as friends comment about my having too many toys and not enough room.

How can you have too many hunting and fishing toys? I’ll never know. I feel like Jeremy holding that cupboard door shut.

So yesterday I declared war. It happened in the morning, an avalanche occurred while I slept. Too much stuff had accumulated on the corner of the big gun reloading bench and slid off onto the floor, creating the loud avalanche that woke the dog. The barking dog woke the house, and the daughter woke me. Arming myself with cardboard boxes, rags for dusting, polish, a few bags and a broom, I prepared for battle.

What really woke me up to the mess was when I found four balances and many various mixed caliber brass on the floor. To appreciate this mess, remember that mixing brass means you must sort and identify every case. You cant make a mistake, so I had been tossing brass that I couldn’t identify in a container. The results of improperly identifying brass can be either humorous or dangerous. It is easy to do. One would think that the manufacturer of brass would make the head stamping of brass a little clearer so people can easily read it.

Anyway, I digress. It was time to straighten up the reloading bench. I started out with a nice, neat loading bench but somehow I ended up with a bench that looks like Jeremy’s closet.

And so, it began. I made every attempt to bribe everyone to do it but to no avail. Now it lies upon me to clean this monster I created. Sacrifices that must be made unless I build on another room. Prices of construction have skyrocketed so off I go. I started off with my boxes, making piles and sorting out good from bad. I started sorting primers, bullets and dies, labeling boxes as I went. By noon, I was beyond grumpy. I started thinking about taking a break but what to do with all the junk I had piled on my lap. I had piled so much junk on myself I could not get up. I was doomed.

Eventually, I used a few books I had piled on the floor to slide things onto the floor. It was about this time my daughter came in to check on me. She shrieked. “It’s worse. How could it be worse?” It was true in my quest to clean I had created an even bigger mess. Now she helped me un-pile some of the stuff surrounding me and helped me out on the deck. When my daughter was little, she used to have to help me wipe grease off the guns after I hunted or identify brass. Alas, I now have been reduced to grease wiping and brass identifying. The mess which grew out of control to monstrous proportion is now being handled by the daughter who used to do what I’m doing. How did this happen to me? Only Jeremy knows.

George Block writes a weekly Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter