In Here Someplace...

I was looking for something in my apartment after work today, and it reminded me of a story from one of the books I had to read for grade school reading class.

It was one of those things that came out of the back of the workbooks when a particular unit was finished.

In this case, the story was about this wizard who lived near a cave that a dragon lived in. The dragon was very cluttered, and eventually the wizard got tired of seeing the mess all the time. One day, the wizard gave the dragon a ring, saying that it was magic and would grant wishes to whoever wore it. The dragon, of course, was a bit lazy, and instead of trying it right away, put the ring aside and lost it amongst the clutter. A few days later, the dragon decided to try out the ring, only to find out that it had disappeared amongst the other treasures, so it began searching. After looking high and low for days, going through everything it owned, the dragon eventually did find the ring, but when it tried to make a wish, the dragon found that nothing happened. Upset, the dragon went to tell the wizard that he had lied, as there was no magic in the ring. The wizard countered by telling the dragon that there was indeed magic in the ring, and to see what it was, all the dragon had to do was turn around and look at its cave. When the dragon turned around, it saw that in the process of searching for the ring, it had tidied up its cavernous home, making it nicer to look at and live in. From that day on, the wizard and the dragon were friends.

As it happens, I find myself in a similar situation as the dragon, some thirty years after I first read that story. My apartment isn't exactly the most organized place ever, and a somewhat younger version of myself has taken the role of the wizard. Some years ago, well before I moved into my own place from my parents', I happened to buy a two-pack of memory cards for the Playstation, one of which I never even took out of the package they came in, and I'm reasonably certain it got moved with me and shuffled around during various other cleanings. I'm hoping that searching for it will help me tidy my dwelling up a bit, or if it doesn't yield such positive results, that I'll at least be inspired to get on with other projects I've been meaning to get to for entirely too long.

If I'm not actually in possession of the particular item I'm looking for, I can replace it easily enough, according to the research I've done. It's just that such memory cards run six bucks at the second-hand gaming store I use, and I can't spare that right now. That's where one of my other projects comes in. As I write this, I'm sitting next to the bookshelf of VHS tapes I'm sure I've mentioned from time to time. For years now, I've been meaning to go through that collection and write little reviews of those movies for this blog and That Guy With The Glasses. When I've got a half dozen or so of those out of the way, I might be able to take them to that same gaming shop and sell or trade them, as they do buy, sell, and trade other media as well as video games.

But first, I'm going to try the cleaning thing. It might get me somewhere, and I'm really hoping it does. Which is, of course, not to say that I couldn't stand to part with some of my inventory anyway. I'm just not looking forward to it.