When Dan and I married we combined my house of furniture with his bachelor condo of furniture. His color theme of orange, turquoise and black was drawn on the Howard Johnson restaurant color palate. Glassware, trays, towels and blankets were accumulated from time spent in Omaha working for General Foods.

The children would say "Why does this towel say Howard Johnsons ?" And I would throw away the towel as soon as I could. He had spent time "accumulating" and I was disrespectful. But we always had two of everything. That way when he left me it would be easy to divide up.

He owned a lovely Curtis Mathis stereo console in the living room. By the eighties it was obsolete. I pronounced it banished to his den behind the garage. It was transferred to the breezeway next to the den upended on a dolly and left there. He would not move it into the pig sty den that was his domain. Four months passed. Thanksgiving loomed.

"Your mother will wonder why the stereo is in the breezeway blocking everything."
"I don't know where to put it."
"Anywhere in the 28 foot long room would work. Maybe where the cat's litterbox sits."
The cat didn't like it but the stereo was moved. It became a nice place to pile newspapers and Raleigh cigarette coupons.

I didn't need to keep two of everything when we married. He wouldn't have left me. Both Dan and the cat hated change. Dan was locked in at the start. The cat never forgave me.