Cleaning house often proves to be a moving experience

You would not expect to see a hermit crab compete successfully on "Jeopardy" - except perhaps in the category "Crusty Crustaceans."

However, those little sea creatures show themselves to be smarter than we humans in one area.

When they move, they either take their house with them or they find a bigger shell and leave the old one behind. They do not bring their old shell along with them and try to stuff it into the new home.

We humans often do exactly that.

I seem to recall dimly from my high school years some guy named Boyle who sat around coming up with laws about gases. One, I think, was that a gas will expand to fill the available space.

We humans aren't much different from gases on this point. Our possessions tend to expand to fill in all the space available - closets, basements, attics, garages and the homes of really good-natured neighbors.

Often, though, we are so busy filling in these empty spaces that we don't realize exactly how much we are accumulating. We also lull ourselves into a false sense of space security by occasionally eliminating articles of clothing or other objects by giving them to a worthy cause.

I went to school so long ago that Greek mythology was considered current events, but I do recall an example of what happens when I try to occasionally salve my conscience by eliminating some books.

The Hydra effect results - named after the nine-headed beast that grew two heads every time Hercules cut one off. Every time I create a bit of space on crammed bookshelves by giving away a few volumes, it seems that I acquire twice as many that fill that vacant space with the remainder to be crammed in wherever possible.

There is nothing really wrong with this habit of accumulating. After all, if you didn't fill the junk drawer with junk, what would you keep in it? The problem comes when we have to move and we suddenly realize just how much we have to move.

It's not very dissimilar from the situation that occurs when a happy couple brings little Adelbert home from the hospital and the little guy is passed around among family members, friends and neighbors as if Adelbert was the basketball in a Harlem Globetrotters warm-up drill.

The situation is much different 18 years later after Adelbert has been eating plenty of mom's home cooking. It would take several forklifts for friends and family to pass him around.

The problem doesn't even seem that big of a deal when we begin the preliminary rounds of moving. That is because we usually only notice big items and we forget the mountains of little stuff that is stashed away in drawers, cupboards, closets and elsewhere.

Behind each drawer and within each drawer lies a cornucopia of stuff that keeps overflowing once it is opened.

We always begin a moving problem optimistically since it takes a while for reality to creep in and stomp all over our plans for a quick and relatively worry-free move.

I don't know about you, but I'm always much more optimistic about the time it will take me do perform a chore than what turns out to be the case. I usually size up a job of cleaning out a desk or cupboard, estimate it will take two or three hours, and wind up calling it quits five or six hours later with the desk or cupboard still unconquered.

This illustrates the first of Professor Van Von Venn's Laws of Moving: There is always at least 10 times as much stuff to move than you think there is.

If you try to sell any of these belongings in order to try to recoup part of the cost of liniment, trusses and doctor's visits that all this work entails, Von Venn's Second Law comes into effect: What you think you will get for something is usually 10 times as much as what you will get. Its Corollary is: Stuff that you think is an antique will have to be hauled away by someone you have to pay.

When you are a young adult of prime moving age, you can offset some of these problems by rounding up some of your friends to help you move. The only drawback is that you have to help them move, and it always seems as though someone is moving somewhere.

As you get older, you will find Von Venn's Third Law comes into play: Your friends will always be out of town the weekend you're moving. If they are not out of town, they will tell you they are.

The potential solution is contained in the Fourth Law and its Corollary: Stay where you're at. If you do have to move, do not unpack the boxes. That way you will be ready if you have to move again.

(Walt Kozlowski, a freelance writer from Mount Carmel, writes "Walt's Way" each Sunday's edition.)

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