Remember the closing of Citizen Kane where the camera pans back to show Kane’s home packed with the accumulations of a misguided life? Rows and rows of boxes, crates and assorted belongings fill every available inch of space with little room to walk or move.

That’s what our house looks like right now (except it is nowhere as large as Kane’s palatial mansion).

What I can’t figure out is how we got all this stuff into the 1,320-foot square foot condo in Arlington that was our home for 23 years. We now have nearly three-times that amount of space and we’re squeezing around boxes, crates, furniture and whatnot.

“Don’t worry,” Amy says. “It will look fine when we get everything put away.”

God I hope so. We gave away or discarded twice what we kept, yet what remains stands packed in our home as a monument to conspicous consumption. Our cars currently sit outside the garade because it, too, is packed to the rafters.

Outside, two deep ruts remain from the misadventures of our movers who thought, incredibly, that they could turn a 26-foot truck around at the top of our driveway. Fortunately, the only damage seems to be to dirt that can be replaced and repacked. The well, dangerously close to the maurauding moving van, appears to have escaped injury. An inspector will deliver the final verdict.

We will tackle the task one box at a time, hoping we can get space cleared before the furniture company delivers even more next week. Yet, as I surveyed the garage packed with boxes, I thought of a simple two-world solution:

Garage sale.