Purging My Room of Clutter (Raquel)
PURGE, v.t. purj. [L. purgo.]
1. To cleanse or purify by separating and carrying off whatever is impure, heterogeneous,foreign or superfluous; as, to purge the body by evacuation; to purge the Augean stable. It is followed by away, of, or off. We say, to purge away or to purge off filth, and to purge a liquor of its scum.Webster’s 1828 Dictionary online
Purge is a good word. For one thing, it’s fun to say. It has a good solid beginning, flows smoothly along, and suddenly cuts off with a sharp ‘j’ as if to say, “We’re done now–let’s not add any superfluous sounds at the end.
For another thing, it carries the satisfaction of streamlining one’s superfluous stuff much better than just ‘getting rid of’. I’ve gotten rid of stuff before. It’s a continual process of realizing that I have odd bits of things hanging around that I really don’t need anymore. This week, however, I have systemically purged my dresser and closet of each redundant, unused, disliked or otherwise superfluous article of clothing. For instance, I realized for the first time that I owned five pairs of black pants and two pairs of gray pants. Even I find seven pairs of black or gray pants to be excessive, and therefore decisively purged… um, one pair… Yeah. Really, though, I’m working on narrowing it down.
Actually, most of the purging process has gone quite well, and I have removed numerous bags of stuff from my room, to be whisked away to go clutter someone else’s–er, that is to say, be donated to some worthy recipients. In the process of eliminating the superfluous, I have discovered how very female I really am when it comes to collecting clothing and accessories. I got rid of some shoes, but yes, there really are ten pairs I use fairly regularly. (Augh! I’m one of the shoe people!) And I won’t even go into the number of headcoverings I own. (Okay, so I’m a particularly conservative brand of girly female.)
Next thing you know, someone’s going to claim I’m good at Egyptian shopping games, and I’ll completely lose my reputation of being a logical and rational type female…
Amun-Re.
Just so you’re not disappointed.
And it really is Egyptian shopping games, because I’ve seen you play non-Egyptian shopping games, and you’re not nearly as good at them.
When I discovered that I am one of those “shoe people,” too, I felt so disappointed in myself. But I can console myself with the fact that they are spiffy-not-too-prissy shoes with a few nifty pairs of clunky boots thrown in for good measure.