How to Fight Chaos, Space-time Continuums and Stuff and Almost Win

I’ve been fighting chaos. This is what happened:

I woke up bright and early, or at least early, or earlyish. I donned by superhero attire of knickers and cape. The cape kept tangling in my knickers so I took that off. Then I didn’t feel it was appropriate to wander the house in just superhero knickers (nice as they are) as there were young men present. So I put on some superhero jeans and t-shirt. And went forth to fight chaos.

The chaos was lurking in an evil and mostly scary way in a small room we call the ‘den’. Possibly we call it this because it is where evil chaos hangs out. Or possibly we call it this because it is so small that it resembles a structure created with spare bedlinen by a child aged approximately five. In fact I have no idea why it is called ‘the den’.

So, chaos, lurking in the den. Imagine the scene if you will – a small room with a small bed and a small desk. Lurking under, over, betwixt, on, in-between, amongst, throughout, amidst and amid the small bed, desk and room is stuff. Serious amounts of stuff. A very very a lot of stuff. The sort of stuff that can only accumulate after fifteen years of putting stuff in a very small room with a desk and a bed. This is the sort of stuff that was there –

Photographs of babies, children and people one no longer recognises
Bank statements from bank accounts one probably never held
Dust
Paintings painted by small children who may or may not be one’s own children but are definitely not the children of Michelangelo
Files of hand-written college notes for qualifications one never used and therefore have forgotten and anyway the notes are totally illegible
Certificates for qualifications one never used and therefore have forgotten but now engender a brief feeling of pride at being so well qualified
Dust
Unrecognisable sticky things
Tents one has bought to go camping only it never stopped raining so the tents are still sealed in their original cellophane wrapping
More dust
Scrunched up old bedding that smells as if the cat has pissed on it
Cats pissing on scrunched up old bedding
Dusty unrecognisable sticky things

And more. Much much more. It is a miracle of space that all this stuff was in this very small room. I brought the physicist in to explain exactly how there could be more stuff in a room than the actual volume of the room. She muttered something about compression and space-time continuums and went back to her room where the amount of space and the amount of stuff actually make sense.

I took my best superhero deep breath and started. And continued. And finished only twelve hours, sixteen recycling bags, seventeen bin bags, and eleven boxes that I don’t know what the hell to do with later. I shall now have to rearrange all the other rooms in the house in order to accommodate all the very useful stuff (see above list) that I have rescued. But that’s ok because I have lots of time as I am now prisoner in my own home because I can’t get past the desk, the bed, the sixteen recycling bags, the seventeen bin bags, and the eleven boxes that I don’t know what the hell to do with that are blocking the road.