Miscellaneous: I Like ‘Em Stacked

The local Tower Records celebrated its move to a new location by putting every DVD in the store on sale. Rosemarie and I went in with a specific agenda: pick up the new disc of John Boorman’s POINT BLANK as well as any bargain oddities we stumbled on, like a copy of Larry Cohen’s sublimely berserk GOD TOLD ME TO for only five dollars.

When we got home, I put our latest purchases on top of a few used DVDs we picked up the week before. On the floor, next to what we laughingly call “the entertainment center.”

And realized, to my horror, that I had created a stack.

Stacks in and of themselves aren’t bad. There’s nothing wrong with putting things on top of other things, as Monty Python has taught us. It’s where the stacks are that matters.

For instance, our first apartment in Seattle had a loft over what we laughingly called “the living room.” We used it to store books. Thousands of them, in dozens of piles. But as nobody could see them without climbing a ladder – which was impossible because we kept non-perishable foodstuffs on the rungs – those stacks didn’t count. Out of sight, out of mind.

We divested ourselves of most of those books when we moved to our new digs. Since then, I’ve acquired a small collection of older paperback crime novels. Stacks of them are balanced on the front of our shelves. But as they are technically on the bookcases, again they don’t count. I prefer to think of them as a creative utilization of space.

But this pile of DVDs on the floor, in plain sight? That’s a stack. Even if I find some nook into which I can wedge these discs, I know another stack can’t be far behind. Thus marking the start of the long slide toward GREY GARDENS territory.

Unless, of course, we move to a bigger place. Then we’re hipsters who own lots of cool stuff.