Spring cleaning; great idea; spring came and went. Fall cleaning is when we generally get inspired after being out and about all summer and now returning to a house that's overdue for some maintaining. But this year, I'm tackling some summer cleaning. Specifically, I'm after clutter. Open flat surfaces are my challenge — desks, tables tops, counters. Stairs, newel posts, furniture, door knobs and the floor are usually uncluttered — except in my office, where on the floor files and books join computer wires and equipment, my portfolio, my recycling basket, and my waste basket to create a mayhem that echoes the general one of books, files, papers, discs, more files, pens, and snail mail spread over my desk and table tops. My old, unused computer remained part of this crowd for years, a high-tech version of another stack of files. It had started to poop out, and I had attempted to download files I might want, but never got rid of it because I was never sure I'd copied everything.

I hadn't. Six months ago, I discovered a short story of mine (that although not right for the publication had received high praise from the editor) was nowhere to be found. I didn't have a paper copy; I couldn't find it on disc; it wasn't on my current computer. I looked over at my old hard drive, a virtual vault to me. The monitor had long ago died; what else had gone down, I had no way of knowing. It had cluttered my office for years. But today, it had caught the eye of the Clutter Buster. I aimed a steely gaze at it. In this moment, I could choose to not ignore this dusty old thing another time. The time was now for my outdated hard drive to either do, or die. (Or maybe do, and die. Either would work.)

I located computer repair services in the yellow pages. Most of the names in my area — Azimuth Computer Solutions, Bull Worldwide Computer Systems, Exepetec Technology Services — sounded like operations that would laugh at my silly little job, and maybe at me, too, for being so computer-challenged. I tried a corporate-sounding company in my town; no answer. Tried another; the man that answered was ready to pick up my computer right then on the way back from his job, but his cadence and manner was one of geekese, and I knew we would not be a match.  I called the last number in my town. Eureka. Al worked out of his home; he'd be back there in about half an hour; I could bring it by.   My heart may have actually skipped a beat at this moment. This was clutter-buster big! I'd been walking around this dusty dinosaur for years. A red-letter day in the annals of clutter busting loomed.

Forty-five minutes later, I pull into his driveway, excitement practically bubbling in my throat. I carry the heavy old monster up the walk. Al answers the door in a company baseball hat, takes the piece of equipment from me, and we head down to his workroom. Panels off, he begins tinkering. "Not coming apart as easily as I'd like," he says.

My shoulders sink. I move one of the two wooden stools around his workbench back, and slump onto it. 

"Does it still work?" he asks me a minute later.

"I think it might," I say.

He hooks it up to his monitor, and tinkers some more. And then, almost surreally, the outdated grinding I hadn't heard for years fills the air as the drive boots up. I work at keeping myself neutral now; don't want to set myself up for a fall.

"Hmm," Al nods, makes another couple clicks, and then, like a miracle on a blue cloudy sky, my old desktop icons come up. "Looks like we've got it."

Within minutes, Al has let me go through all the files — the story I lost is there!!!! — chose the ones I want, and burned them onto a CD.  We check the new CD; bingo, I'm in business. Am I starting to hyperventilate? I'm about to ditch this big metal hunk.  Major clutter-busting score. "Any reason to keep this anymore, Al? Can't recycle or get any use out of this thing, right?"

Al considers for a moment. "No, really not. And in our town, you can put it out with the trash and they'll take it." He pauses. "But you ought to wipe it clean before you get rid of it. I can do that if you want." 

My palms consider sweating. Wipe it clean. So final. I move to the edge of my stool, thinking hard.  I have all the files I think I could ever use...but I didn't take them all...but I did take everything that seemed even remotely worth saving. I teeter back and forth on the edge, and then get ready to push off. I'm about to say it, "Wipe away," and I'm envisioning this relic out next to our trash, birds singing in the background like a Disney sound track, when Al says, "Do you have room to keep it? Do you have an attic?"

I go still, then answer. "I do."

"I'd keep it. I'd put it up there."

So close. So very close. I take a deep breath.  And sigh. "Okay," I say. "I'll keep it."

It's in my car trunk now, cluttering that. I'll get it to the attic, but it's heavy. So's this clutter-busting business.  But tomorrow's another day...