Mold

It started innocently enough. I was attempting to start packing up the copious amount of books that occupy the WALL OF BOOKCASES in our current house ready for the movers to take across Durham this upcoming weekend. And, as you might remember from a previous installment, I packed everything into boxes back in Bicester almost two years ago, and those empty boxes were in the basement. Oho! This wouldn’t take very long at all.

Except, when I got downstairs and started checking out the boxes, there was a slight problem. Well, not so much slight, more of an increasingly panic-stricken realisation that almost all my boxes were exhibiting signs of mold growth. Some of them had quite a considerable amount of it.

I ripped open boxes of CDs, pulling out jewel boxes that were showing signs of damp and mold spores. I pulled out old papers that were damp to the touch. I grabbed a box of Transformers, including my boxed European Overlord. The box started disintegrating in my hands as I pulled out the styrofoam, white beads of foam having turned to black.

These are just things, of course. But they’re not just things - a CD collection that took decades to amass, where each and every CD has a memory associated with it, from almost freezing to death walking into town to buy Don’t Look Back In Anger, to buying Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada in the high humid heat of Wilmington, straight from the set of Dawson’s Creek. There are notebooks, legal pads full of the writing I did from 2002 until 2011, including all the notes for my interviews and reviews when I was working for Static. Almost every Transformer I have ever owned. And other boxes full of irreplaceable items and memories.

Let’s just say, I didn’t take the possibility of losing all my childhood and teenage things very well. Everything that could be potentially saved is now in plastic tubs and drowned in rice. We’re hoping that this will be able to kill the mold and dry everything out (and thanks to Tammy, who happened to be dropping by to wish a happy July 4th, and instead ended up going on a late-night adventure to Wal-Mart to buy all the rice. So much rice).

On the bright side, we do finally have a washer and drier over at the new house, so we don’t have to venture in the basement here ever again. Which is one of the few bright spots of the week (along with getting the Nest connected, so we can now control our thermostat from our phones. It’s like the future, but only without hoverboards and jetpacks)