Frank Black – "My Life Is in Storage" (2005)

My life is in storage

What life has become

Stored here for a sum

In the last 2 or 3 lines, I said that dying sooner rather than later isn’t my greatest fear – and I promised to tell you what my greatest fear is.  

My greatest fear isn’t dying – it’s dying and leaving behind a big mess for someone else (i.e., my children) to clean up.

There are actually two very different kinds of messes one can leave behind when one dies.  

First, one can leave behind a tangible mess in the form of physical possessions (e.g., clothes, furniture, dishes, documents, collectibles) or unresolved financial or legal issues.

Second, one can leave behind a mess in the form of unfinished emotional business with one’s loved ones – which results in feelings of regret if not anger among those who are left behind. 

The second of those is much more interesting, but also much more difficult to face up to and deal with.  I may address that second kind of mess in the future, or I may continue to keep kicking that particular can down the road until it is too late.

Today, I’m dealing strictly with the first kind of mess.

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A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Extra Space Storage informing me that the monthly cost of my five-foot-by-five-foot climate-controlled storage unit was going to increase from $33 to $60 at the beginning of 2025.

“UNACCEPTABLE!” I muttered to myself before embarking on a search for cheaper storage locations.

(By the way, the storage unit business is a really odd one.  Extra Space Storage operates 16 storage facilities in my home county, and the rents for a 5 x 5 unit in those different facilities vary wildly – depending on which one you choose, you will pay $37, $45, $50, $55, $59, $60, $61, $68, or $75 monthly.  The rate at any one location can go up or down significantly from month to month – the supply of and demand for storage units at any given time seems to be the primary determinant of that rate.)

Eventually I decided to simply stay where I was for the next six months.  I did negotiate a monthly rate that was somewhat less than the $60 they originally asked for, but somewhat more than the rate at any number of other locations that were equally convenient to my apartment.  

I chose to maintain the status quo because the prospect of emptying out all the crap in my storage, putting it in my car, and transferring it a less costly storage facility – a process that would require multiple trips unless I rented a van big enough to move everything in one fell swoop – was too much for me to bear.  (Especially since I would need to do that either just before or just after Christmas.)

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What exactly is in my storage unit?

I’m working mostly from memory here, because I haven’t set foot inside the unit in at least six months.  But I think this list covers most the contents of my space:

Several large plastic containers of clothing items – mostly polo shirts, sweaters, and winter coats – that I haven’t worn in at least ten years and will likely never wear again.

About half a dozen boxes filled with logo glasses from various craft breweries around the country that I’ve visited at one time or another.  (We’re talking well over 100 glasses – and that doesn’t include the several dozen currently on display in my apartment.)

Roughly 60,000 baseball cards (which reside in roughly 100 cardboard boxes that are resting on two metal shelving units).

Roughly a zillion photographs of my children taken by my mother (mostly when said children visited my parents’ home in Joplin, Missouri, in the summer and over Christmas breaks). 

Miscellaneous artifacts of my childhood – ranging from my bronzed baby shoes, to report cards, to programs from musical performances I participated in, to papers I wrote for various classes, to newspaper clippings that mentioned me.  (My mother never threw away anything that evidenced that most glorious creature that was her first-born child.)

*     *     *     *     *

I made some progress with the baseball cards last year, when I sold maybe 20% of my cards to a local dealer.  That leaves 80% – most of which are of very little value . . . which means I can either throw them out of keep them.  (Guess which option I’m currently leaning in favor of?)

It should be easy to get rid of half of my clothes.  After all, I haven’t worn most of them in years.  But they are in relatively good condition, and they look pretty damn good on me.  (If I could sell them, I would.  And if I could give them away and get a tax deduction, I would.  But the standard deduction was increased by a large amount a few years ago, so it’s hard to believe that I will ever be in a position to itemize deductions in the future.)

There may someone out there would welcome my collection of brewery glasses, but how do I find him?  (I say him because I’m pretty sure there’s no her who wants them.)

I can’t throw away my mother’s photographs without taking at least a cursory look at each one – those are my children in those pictures! – and that’s going to take forever.

And for the childhood artifacts, what would you have me do?  Throw away my report cards, or the programs of my public piano performances, or the copies of the school newspapers I wrote articles for?  ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?

A lot of people say we are not our possessions.  I say that a lot of people of full of sh*t!

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Click here to listen to “My Life Is in Storage,” from Frank Black’s 2005 Honeycomb album.  (Frank Black, who was born Charles Michael Kittredge Thompson IV, called himself Black Francis when he was a member of the Pixies.)  

Click here to buy it from Amazon.