Storage Solutions

Or: mo’ storage, mo’ problems

Since I sold my flat almost two years ago, I’ve had many of my possessions tucked away in deep storage somewhere in Acton, west London. Haunted by my friend’s report of what a storage man said to her last year (that three months is the event horizon of storage - you keep stuff in there longer than that, you’ll be there forever) and drained each month financially and emotionally by the knowledge of its existence, in August I decided to remedy the situation.

(Side note: scratch the surface, and many people have some kind of storage shame story, as I’ve discovered since I started incessantly banging on about mine.)

Deep storage, where my stuff was all in boxes piled atop each other and with no room to spread out and breathe, was suboptimal for my plan. Instead, I would decant everything into a larger, more accessible storage nearby. From there I would chip away at it like a giant termite until everything was sorted - reabsorbed, sold, donated or binned. At which point my life would be frictionless and meaningful. At last!

After almost two years I’d pretty much forgotten what was in there, and the inventory wasn’t much help (“cutlery/misc”, “green top plastic containers x 4” etc) - but undoubtedly I wasn’t paying an offensive amount of money a month to store absolute crap. SPOILER: Ho ho ho.

I have a “gag” that my parents had the most expensive cheap furniture ever - cheap because they bought much of it at garage sales while we were living in California. Expensive because they paid a great deal to have it all shipped back to London. I feel a lot less quippy now that my own crap is getting more expensive every day I pay to store it.

To find a BIGGER, more EXPENSIVE storage for my chattels, I chose a Big Yellow Storage near where I live. I had a longish chat with a representative on the phone, to whom I declared two months would be ample as I was certain to be out by then, spurred on by the knowledge of storage event horizons, the fact that my introductory offer ran out at two months at which point the price would double, and an insane confidence in my own decluttering efficiency. ANOTHER SPOILER: it’s been over two months and I’m still there.

I cannot praise Big Yellow Storage enough. Their onboarding system is so insanely pleasant, they are so efficient, the whole place is so brilliantly run… it’s almost as if… they WANT you to stay there?! If I had a penny for every person who works there who’ve I’ve told I’ll be out in a matter of weeks (I actually did this again on the phone last week)… I’d still have no money because I’m paying for Big Yellow Storage. The whole model is very Hotel California if the “checking out” bit was “you saying to someone who works there that you’ll be gone soon” and the never leaving part was exactly the same.

Anyway, I was talking to my friend Ella about it and telling her that once again, lumping my stuff about has brought up a million existential feelings about what I’m doing with my life and my poor decisions, and she said I was having Big Yellow Feelings. Which I thought was brilliant. I have defined these below - please note they are distinct from Holly Golightly’s Blues and Mean Reds, but in combo with those make up a primary trio of uncomfortable emotions.

Big Yellow Feelings (noun):

Feelings brought up by an assessment of your worldly goods, and the knowledge that you have been paying to store them in one form or another, with you or apart, for over half your life.

Feelings include but are not limited to: Why did I get this? What is this? Why have I paid to store it? Do I think this [guineafowl mobile/comedy slogan t-shirt/papier mâché bowl] will hug me when I’m old? *weeping*

An important note is that books are excluded from all Big Yellow Feelings. In my experience their reappearance brings nothing but satisfaction and pleasure. That’s why we should only buy books!

Thanks for reading! 💛