Brian "Two Wheelbarrows" Davidson

Lately, both my mother and my father-in-law have been busy cleaning house and shedding possessions. I don't rightly know why, though I can understand the desire to get rid of stuff you're no longer using.

I'm on the receiving end, though. From Mom, we got the following items:

1) A back massager in the shape of a donkey.
2) A little tin box.
3) A novelty jewelry box in the shape of a whale that I built in junior high shop class.
4) A small wooden train engine.
5) A small wooden box with a farm scene on the lid.

All of these items came home and promptly disappeared into the mountains of knick-knackery we already have.

Today I got a call from Wayne, Michelle's dad. He's offering:

1) A wheelbarrow with a flat tire.
2) A picnic table.
3) A small load of firewood.

I'm taking all three items, of course. I see no reason not to. A man can never have too many wheelbarrows -- I learned that from my own dad. We'll burn the firewood and as for the picnic table, well, I guess we'll stack it with the other one we already have. I think Michelle's holding out hope that this one'll be in better shape than the one we've already got.

The table we already have we rescued out of a pile of trash our neighbors put out in the alley a few years ago for the city to collect. We've enjoyed it, and so have the wasps that tried to build nests in its hollow tubing until I insisted they find other premises.

So you may soon call me "Two Wheelbarrows." I guess having an emergency backup wheelbarrow is a good thing, especially if I can get the tire fixed. That shouldn't be a problem.

This all ties in, of course, with the Davidson Property Weight Augmentation Theory, which Randy, Maaike and I formulated after Dad brought home about a ton of landscaping rocks from the Kilgore area a few years back. The theory goes that merely increasing one's property value is meaningless. What counts is that you increase the weight of the property, by bringing in random items. I've already started to build on that theory, though my puny collection of bricks and pallets, to be burned, can't rival the collection of rock and other hardware Dad amassed over 72 years of life.