Your KUWm, who hates everything under the best of circumstances ("Oh, darling...it was wonderful..." "Yeah. I hate the world a few iotas less...No, wait. All over.") just moved out of the only comfortable place he's lived since being levered out of his mother's basement. This involved trials that I do not intend to write about until I can afford lawyers or a lot of designer tranks. However, as a housewarming gift to my dear editrix Amelia, I am going to see what I can safely dredge up.

Come a little closer. I'm going to share my feelings with you. Now that you're feeling all crawly: Every time I've moved out of a place, I've wound up dumping all my desk drawers into boxes like I'm being fired from an office job (you've probably seen this in the movies). I never unearth these boxes until I have to move again and start culling the stuff that got kicked under my bed when I was unpacking. I snap the tape and look in, see what this crap is and why I brought it with me.¹

This move's box contained (among other things):

• A dissecting kit (baby-blue plastic case, matching scalpel, tweezers, frog scissors, gut spikes). I remember finding this for 50 cents at a yard sale in Amherst, MA, four years ago if not five.
• A Folger Shakespeare Theatre ruler with the Kings and Queens of England from 1066 A.D. to present. I don't know where this came from.
• Two Phillips screwdrivers, one flathead, a glass cutter, and a pair of pliers. I thought I'd lost them.
• Two Altoids tins. One contained laundry tokens from Philadelphia, safety pins and VCR adapters, along with an unused college I.D. photo from Temple U. That carbon dates tin #1 at seven years old. The second contained what look like housekeys (5), handcuff keys (2), padlock keys (3), mini-padlocks (2), and a scattering of unmatched shirt buttons. I am guessing the house keys are from the three houses I lived in Philly.
• Two Cross pens. One matte-black (gift), one gold plated (stolen from retail job years back).
• Two padlocks. One matches keys above; one appears to be an antique.
• Alice in Wonderland pencil tin. Contains five pen-knives, five guitar picks, two single-edge razors (one rusted), three 9mm casings, two silver hoop earrings, and two handcuff keys. These are all artifacts obscurely related to women in Philadelphia and Massachusetts who wish I was dead.
• One 30-minute microcassette that I am afraid to listen to.
• One meticulously folded letter written on graph paper from a woman in Massachusetts whom I personally wish was dead.
• White envelope containing several items of rusty junk found in the street or by the train tracks in Philly.

. . . I'm probably throwing the rest of the stuff out.

footnotes
1. Usually because I was too frazzled to have the sense to throw it out instead of packing it, of course.