Kevin Page: Hopes of getting spare bedroom back dashed, as the Boomerang Child returns

The travel bug seemingly satisfied, The Boomerang Child and her partner Builder Boy have purchased a nice little place and this weekend just gone was the big shift. But there's an unexpected twist, writes Northern Advocate columnist Kevin Page. Photo / Getty Images

I've just rediscovered the fact we actually live in a three bedroom house.

When we bought it I was pretty sure it had three bedrooms. In fact I distinctly remember discussing the spare room with Mrs P. She planned to use it to get into scrapbooking and I planned to use it to finally learn guitar.

Naturally, this being the real world and all that, her Get Into Scrapbooking book remains unopened on the shelf, along with my Teach Yourself Guitar CDs.

But the main reason we haven't been able to use our third bedroom is the fact it was commandeered some time ago by our youngest cherub.

Let me explain.

The Boomerang Child (she always comes back) has travelled the world and worked at a variety of places in New Zealand to fund those travels. Naturally this has meant a lot of shifting from one address to the other.

Fortunately she has a good relationship with the good folk at Mum and Dad Furniture Removals and Storage Unlimited. You may have heard of them. They have branches all over the country.

Over the years they have shifted the Boomerang Child from one town to another and promised to store the bits that didn't fit into what appeared to be an ever decreasing size of flat/room/sleepout.

Now I realise what was actually happening was the accommodation was the same size; she was just accumulating more stuff to fit it.

Obviously it wouldn't. So naturally the director of Mum and Dad Furniture Removals and Storage Unlimited who doesn't write a weekly column for this newspaper decided to make an executive decision and take the stuff back to store in our third bedroom .. . "until she's ready".

And at the weekend she was.

The travel bug seemingly satisfied, she and her partner Builder Boy have purchased a nice little place and this weekend just gone was the big shift.

It would be an exaggeration (I know. Right? Me exaggerating) to say the task left me with a spring in my step but I have to admit I was rather pleased with the discovery of more and more floorspace in my spare bedroom as the hire trailer parked on the driveway filled up.

As i went about my work lugging boxes of god knows what and nana's old telly, I began to think maybe I would, after all, get to learn the guitar. I might even set up a drum kit in that room too.

I'm pretty certain Mrs P was thinking the same. She had a smile on her face which suggested getting into scrapbooking was back on the agenda. Maybe even setting up that meditation room she's been talking about ever since the Boomerang Child went to India and came back all spiritual.

Eventually, the third bedroom now empty and the trailer full, we set off and arrived at our destination to find chaos, boxes everywhere, little space left and the distinct possibility we would be asked to store stuff for a bit longer. Maybe "until we're ready".

I have to say I haven't waited this long for such an opportunity to reclaim some space without a contingency plan. So before any possibility of us being asked to continue to store said items was uttered I'd begun shoving boxes inside the new house.

Anywhere. Lounge, kitchen, garage, that small space under the stairs... anywhere, as long as I didn't have to take them back.

After a while Builder Boy muttered something like "so much stuff" as we lugged a huge chest marked "shoes" upstairs. I was able to explain she was just like her mother. It would get better, I reassured him. Unfortunately it might take 30 years.

Anyway.

I think the enormity of the issue had hit the Boomerang Child by the time we left to head home.

There she was bewildered, standing in her new house surrounded by boxes and furniture she probably didn't even know she had and definitely didn't have any idea what to do with.

Oh well, I thought. It's all part of dealing with life's little crises isn't it? I'm sure she'll figure out a solution.

What I hadn't realised was that she had made some sort of arrangement with her mum who, as we drove, was being extra nice and suggesting I might like a nice coffee as a treat.

Then I saw them in the back. A number of items which looked like they'd been stored in a certain spare room for years.

"It's just three or four boxes she needs to have a think about," explained Mrs P guiltily.

"We'll just keep them in our third bedroom till she's ready. It's not like we use that room for anything".

■ Kevin Page is a teller of tall tales with a firm belief too much serious news gives you frown lines. Feel free to share stories to kevin.page@nzme.co.nz .