Chapter 84

Chapter 84: Chapter 84

The last sentence touched not only the audience but also Arum.

She went to the sink right away and took out all the trash bags there.

When she was reminded by the lecturer that her current house was herself, she felt ashamed that her house was a real mess.

She looked around her home slowly.

What are my favorite things here?

She tried to find them, but she could find only a few.

The rug she bought on her business trip to Spain, the espresso coffee machine she bought with her savings, the white table she bought at a big discount, etc.

When she asked herself if these things she singled out were precious, she wondered if they were. She might want to change them at some point, but she didn’t want to keep them all her life.

After all, there were not many things in her house that she wanted to keep for a long time. Her house was full of gifts and other stuff that she couldn’t use or keep in stock for future use.

There were too many towels, in particular, that she received when she went to the opening ceremony of her acquaintance’s business, wedding halls or children’s birthday parties.

While she was drying her face with the towels, she naturally recalled episodes related to them.

That buffet sucked!

I hear they got divorced.

I wonder if their children are doing alright now.

Too many memories related to each of the towels came to her mind.

On such occasions, she vowed one thing, When I get married, let me buy some decent brand name towels.

Though she vowed like that, she didn’t want to buy such towels right away.

She decided to dump the towels that reminded her of others’ anniversary events.

She opened the door of her restroom and took out all the towels there except for three and put them all in a trash bag. If her mother saw her now, she would certainly have scolded her. The old her would certainly have felt they were too precious to dump.

It was the first time Arum felt she owned the whole world! For the first time, she felt she was taking the lead in managing her life. Though she had only thrown away some towels, she learned a big lesson that she hadn’t thought of in the past.

“What is the next item?”

Now, she decided to dump other stuff seriously.

Just like a hyena out in the field looking for prey, her eyes glinted. She was walking around slowly in her house and looked for things to throw into trash bags.

Suddenly, she thought of Hojoon’s book <The Rule of the Trash Can>. He pointed out in the book that if one didn’t use an item for one year, it could be treated as trash. Based on his ruling, the items she bought, timed with the arrival of each season, but didn’t use for the past two years, were trash.

When she set the bar, she came to see more trash in her house.

First of all, her wardrobe.

She took out the clothes that didn’t fit her anymore. Half of the clothes belonged to this category. Outdated clothes, damaged clothes and those stored for mending were all dumped.

“What about this swimsuit?” She didn’t have to feel agonized about it. When she turned it over to check its size, it got rumpled quickly. “Dang it. It was expensive!”

She put it into a trash can right away.

“Oh, I’ve found this snowboarding wear here!”

She went skiing last year, but she had to borrow snowboarding wear. As she impulsively joined her companions on the trip, she didn’t have time to buy any beforehand.

“What a waste!”

But she couldn’t put it on as it looked rustic.

When she threw lots of stuff into the trash bag, she was left with the clothes that she wore last year and this year.

Do you feel empty? she asked herself.

“Nope.”

She couldn’t believe it. She initially thought she couldn’t throw any of it away, but once she started to dump stuff, she instantly found what she wanted to discard. Three large trash bags were filled with the discarded clothes she took out from the wardrobe.

She couldn’t believe she had finally done it.

In fact, she didn’t realize how many clothes were in the wardrobe before she cleared them.

She went to the bookshelf.

Her desk was littered with all kinds of stuff except for the spot where she placed her laptop. Memo pads, pencils, beverage cups, souvenir pictures, etc. There were also contract papers and bills she should throw away, but she only had one goal: selecting only those items that she should not dump.

After picking important stuff, she put all the rest into a trash bag.

She really felt great.

Her biggest headache was the sink.

“What should I do about this?”

It was already past 3AM. She was still energetic enough to keep cleaning.

She decided to take a break and drink water.

During the break, she played Hojoon’s online video again.

Hojoon told the audience, “It’s pretty difficult to throw it all away at one time. Sometimes you find it hard to judge whether to dump or not.”

What the heck is he talking about? I’ve already cleaned lots of stuff!

“Sometimes you might need to buy an item in a week or even one day after you dumped it,” he said to the audience.

Dang it. You should have said that before I threw it away!

She momentarily got upset.

After spending several hours cleaning and dumping lots of unused or unnecessary items, she was now pausing for breath. So, it was natural that she got enraged about what he told the audience a moment ago.

She grimaced and drank her water.

“So, what do you want me to do?” she tried to pick a fight with Hojoon in the video.

“As for those items that you were hesitant to dump now, you need a separate drawer or a container box to put them in. If you don’t use them, say, for three or six months, or even one month, dump them without any hesitation. You need to practice dumping your stuff. And the most important thing is that you should never buy things you want to throw away later. When you reach that point, others around you will tell you that you look peaceful, happy and your face looks bright, which makes you feel like you had a free plastic surgery. Just by dumping unnecessary stuff and cleaning your house you can feel as if your house became enlarged and you got Botox. If you throw things away and the energy of your house is circulating well, you will lose weight, too.”

Hojoon talked about what middle-aged women might want to hear. Each of his words made them burst into laughter.

“Wow, look at his talent! That’s why women have no choice but to like him.”

But she didn’t feel good about his action at all.

“He’s not my boyfriend, anyway. Just receive their love as much as you can and contribute to world peace, Hojoon!”

She sprang to her feet and walked to the sink. Though she didn’t have a container for miscellaneous stuff, she decided to put all the unused plates inside the cupboard under the sink.

She picked unused plates first. After rearranging them according to their size, color and forms, she piled them neatly in the cupboard.

As she was so absent-minded cleaning and dumping stuff all through the night, she didn’t realize the day already broke. On her smartphone on the table was Hojoon’s online video lecture playing continuously. Was it because of that video lecture? She felt as if she were with him in the house now.

“Done!”

She put away all the miscellaneous plates and rearranged only those plates she used often. The plates stacked high in the sink were dumped into a trash bag.

“Done with cleaning!”

When she examined her house now, she felt as if she came to a penthouse for vacation.

She was all wet with sweat. Her mouth was dry from the dust. She washed her hands several times while cleaning, but her hands got dirty again in no time.

“Let me take a shower and hit the sack.”

She went to the bathroom.

Though she was physically exhausted, the shower refreshed her.

She felt proud of her reflection.

Finally, she finished the work she had been putting off until now.

There were some unused home appliances in the small room, but she didn’t care. As soon as the day broke, she was going to call a used home appliances dealer to take them all.

She could sell them at a decent price if she listed them on auction sites, but she had to pay some attention in order to do that. She had a lot to sell, to say the least, and she felt it unethical to receive calls from buyers of her items while she was in the office.