I had an idyllic childhood that I remember fondly. I feel a little
apologetic saying that, because many people weren't as fortunate. I know
because I dated all of them. At one point I began to worry I might have a
fetish for women with baggage. After all I did enjoy those old Samsonite
commercials with the gorillas. Eventually I realized the problem wasn't
me, but the extremely low odds of meeting someone uncomplicated and happy
in modern society. That was a great relief, because it meant I could
neck with my favorite Brenthaven duffel bag out in the open again. But
it also taught me how lucky I was to be so incredibly well adjusted.

Of course there are downsides to growing up in a quiet suburb with
tolerant, nurturing parents. One is that I entered adulthood with
near-toxic levels of self esteem, and when you combine youthful
overconfidence with all the street smarts of a kitten on the freeway,
you've got a recipe for stupidity. Stupidity leads to pain. Pain leads
to suffering. And suffering is supposed to lead to a successful writing
career, but unfortunately in my case it just led to more stupidity.

Another problem is that because my childhood was such a nice experience
I tend to be nostalgic and overly sentimental about both people and
things. Combine sentimentality with incurable cheapness and you've got
yourself a pack rat. I hang on to everything from 1987 Toyotas to 1982
Hanes undershirts with a vice-like grip.

My wife Athena (not her real name) is the natural predator of pack rats
everywhere. She loves springtime because any season that gives her an
excuse to throw stuff out is good with her. When she awoke last Friday to
find a large dumpster in a neighbor's driveway she nearly swooned. Two
days later I heard a cry of excitement downstairs--a second dumpster
had been delivered to another neighbor. It's like Christmas in April
over here, and I must admit her maniacal glee is rather infectious.

I decided to try my hand at spring cleaning. When I'm driving to BJ's to
buy 150 D-size batteries and a 3 gallon bucket of shampoo, I often think
of an amusing word, sentence, or sometimes even a whole paragraph that
might be the germ of a column. I scribble the essence of the idea onto
the nearest piece of paper as I run red lights and sideswipe pedestrians,
hoping to flesh it out when I get home. Then I listen to Top 40 radio and
forget all about it. My glove compartment is full of dog-eared grocery
lists and junk mail, on the backs of which are incomprehensible phrases
like, "Uncle Pete Moss," and "Bedtime story for a proctologist." Those
I count as successes, because normally I can't even read my writing.

Anyway I need to pitch a few of these things or my wife Farrah (not her
real name) is threatening to put me in a dumpster. I can't stand to see
anything go to waste, though, so over the next three months whenever I
get stuck trying to finish a column I'll simply stop typing, pull out
the next grocery list and tack some random half-baked musings into

Last weekend my wife decided that the upstairs hallway needed repainting,
which is funny, because I painted this very hallway two years ago. The
paint isn't chipping or defective in any way, yet somehow new paint is
required. And this time it has to be white.

Now, in simpler times when our grandparents wanted to paint a wall
white, they went out and bought white paint. They were busy fighting
world wars, raising six kids apiece and immigrating; they had no time
to fool around. In contrast my wife and I had the following conversation:

"How about Atrium White?"
"That's got some yellow in it."
"Okay, Dove White?"
"We used that on the trim in the downstairs bathroom."
"Oh, right right. Have we ever done Decorator White?"
"No, but that's too white."
"You read my mind. The Marshalls did their kitchen in Navajo White. I
thought that was pretty nice."
"The Marshalls are idiots. We don't want their colors."
"I've got it: Bone White."
"Let's go with Cloud White."
"Never heard of it. Is that like Winter White?"

And so on. This is how you measure a civilization's prosperity and
recognize its tipping point. If there are over two hundred available
shades of white paint, someone has too much time on his hands. We know
from our history books that when the ability to distinguish Pale Straw
from Lancaster Whitewash is revered in a society, natural forces push
that bloated, complacent nation into some form of armed conflict. Try
this test yourself at the next dinner party: if more than half the
conversation involves redecorating, and everyone present--men, women
and children--are all participating with equal expertise and enthusiasm,
then consider yourself witness to the apogee of American economic power.

John Lengyel lives in Cohasset. Write an article mocking doulas.