Pragmatic Matt

Matt announced to his family that he was finally going to clean out the horse barn. With the passing of the work teams and the introduction of ATVs, horse barns are little used any more and tend to become storage sheds, full of quasi-junk - a long fall from when barns were the proud center of activity on every ranch or farm.

His two teenage children didn't even try to hide their cynical smiles when they heard Matt's plans, and his wife started closing cupboard doors a little harder than necessary as he talked. They had been nagging him to clean the barn. Last year he promised the same thing, but only succeeded in rearranging what was there, and even adding to it. This year would be different.

The barn was cluttered, and one small stall in the back was full of things dragged in from other places on the ranch – a movable mess system, Matt's wife called it.

As he neared the about-to-become-trash pile, Matt stepped on a pony bridle, buried in the ancient manure. He pried it from its resting place and saw that it was the bridle his daughter used on a little pony, that died ten years ago.

A keepsake too good to toss out, Matt took it to the horse trough and washed it off, thinking that it would make a nice present if it were repaired, oiled and fastened to a weathered board – a leather remembrance of times past. He told himself he'd do that on Christmas as a surprise for the daughter, and put the bridle in the manger where it would be safe.

Matt pawed through more of the junk, taking only a few small things to the pickup. He noticed in one battered box an old baseball glove that belonged to his son in the little league days. Being in a generous mood, Matt decided to repair and mount the glove on a board like he planned for his daughter's bridle. He stored them together, happy with himself.

He continued to paw through the detritus, noting that he had performed the same task a number of times, and everything had a destined purpose in Matt's future. That's why he had saved it, that plus all the things in three other buildings.

In the back of the stall, Matt discovered the first washing machine to be used on the ranch. He had a lifetime of familiarity with it, and couldn't bring himself to throw it away. In another surge of Christmas spirit, Matt decided to keep the machine, clean and paint it, and put it the front yard as a conversation piece. In an act of newly acquired efficiency, Matt put the bridle and the glove inside the old washer.

After three hours of difficult decisions in the horse barn, Matt only had a tiny bit of junk in the pickup, so he decided to continue his labors in the other ranch buildings. There hadn't been time to put the destined junk to use, and he hoped to get a lot of it done after the calves were shipped that fall.

So Matt went to the dump with just a tiny load of junk. He had expected to make two or three big loads, but there was nothing to be hauled away. There never was, Matt thought. All the broken shovel and pitchfork handles had a future purpose, as did the small pieces of log chain (gate latches) and a hundred other things that no one valued, except for Matt.

After he unloaded the tiny bit of waste that had taken him all afternoon, Matt checked the dumpster and noticed an almost new five-gallon bucket laying on the bottom. In his frugal mood, Matt didn't hesitate and let himself down into the unit. He needed that bucket and knew just where he was going to use it.

First, Matt put his foot through a thin garbage bag filling his shoe with grapefruit rinds. Then, irritated and struggling all the way to the bottom, Matt grabbed the bucket, only to find that it was full of used cat litter. He had only contempt for a person who would use a perfectly good container for something so mundane as cat waste.

It was a struggle for Matt to escape the dumpster. He peeked over the side before he rolled out and onto the gravel to be sure that no one was coming, as even when it came to parsimony, Matt had his concern for public opinion.

That night at supper, with smirks, the family asked him how his afternoon went. Matt broke into his hackneyed monologue about waste on the ranch, and how he cleaned so well that afternoon that everything on the ranch had a future purpose and was to be saved. It just had to be organized, Matt said.

The family exchange rolling-eyed glances. Just yesterday Matt had delivered a diatribe about all the junk on the place, and how it all should be tossed as worthless. He did that every year at that time.

Pragmatic, Matt is.