As I reported in an earlier post, I am currently between jobs and not generating any income for now. This creates a monumental problem for the MIJ Museum, because I had stashed all my inventory in a 10x12' climate-controlled storage unit close to my house, and that convenience doesn't come free. When I checked the current status of my bank account, I immediately came to the realization that this expense was going to rapidly decrease my available funds. The rent for my storage unit, which was initially around $200 a month when I first moved in, has slowly risen over the years to a quite unreasonable sum over $400. When I had a job making so much money I didn't know what to do with all of it, this expense wasn't an issue I dwelled on much, not having another better option I could think of at the moment. But at this point the situation is desperately critical and I had to do something fast.
Selling everything would take too much time and cause such intense internal pain that I would probably never recover from it, so it was obvious what I had to do:
MOVE EVERYTHING OUT. NOW!
That's what I have been doing for the past few weeks. Hauling drums out of the storage facility and lugging them back to the house, up the stairs and into a spare bedroom. I guess my brother will have to sleep on the couch when he visits at Christmas. Oh well. So be it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
This task is not so easy for an old man with bad knees. Heck, just moving the Tamas and the Ludwigs took an entire day (those are my biggest kits). One by one the MIJ kits slowly came home: back and forth to the facility, up and down the elevator (my unit was on the 3rd floor), in and out of my car, up and down the stairs, stacking and re-stacking, moving and shaking and whatnot.
At last it was all moved, and I relinquished my possession of the storage unit. All done. No more rental fee. I settled down on the couch to rest my knees and back, and catch up on some YouTube videos, feeling ever so relieved and thankful that I have a loving, understanding mother who would allow me to use her upstairs spare bedroom as my new storage facility. Whew, was that a major undertaking!
Not five minutes into my first video, I turn to see my dear old mother standing there with a concerned frown.
"You know," she says gently, "I had no idea you had that many drums."
I know, I know, I thought, I am a complete idiot.
"So I was just thinking," she continued, "All those drum sets are going to put a lot of weight on the dining room ceiling below. I sure wouldn't want that ceiling to start sagging and.....well, you know....."
"Yeah," I said, "Hopefully I can sell some off pretty quick so that....."
"Well, in the meantime," she interrupted, "It would probably be best to move most of them downstairs. Just in case. I would feel much better about it."
I died a little bit inside. Of course, I would never be able to live with myself if my stupid, irresponsible drum set collection caved in my poor old mama's house that she graciously opened up to me out of pity. So for another week I trudged up the dadgummed stairs hauling most of the drums I had just hauled up there back down to the first floor. Hours and hours of cleaning, arranging and re-arranging the "Entertainment Room" finally resulted in converting this area into a giant Drum Room.
And now I am officially, absolutely and most definitely THROUGH moving drums. I am "all in" as people used to say. Now all I have to do is find some loving homes for them to go to. I'm not sure how long it will take or if it's even possible at all, but I have to at least try to sell off as much as I can.
For now, here is a quick tour of the misplacedmtnman Massive MIJ Museum in its present state:
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