When I walk our dog around the block, I notice that 4 out of 5 garages are full with stuff. I rarely see a garage with space for cars.
And when I say full, I don’t mean things taking up all the floor space, I mean the garage is packed from floor to ceiling.
This phenomenon is amazing to me, but I guess it is not that surprising because we live in a society where sharing is obsolete.
For example, it bothers me that in order to mow my tiny patch of lawn, I have to buy my own lawn mower. A lawn mower that will cost me over $100 dollars, that I will only use at most once a week. The rest of the time, it will sit in my garage taking up a considerable amount of space.
I often wonder why its not common for neighbors to share things like lawn mowers. I am willing to bet that my entire neighborhood could share one lawn mower, and all of us would have nice green, trimmed lawns. But nope. Everyone has their own lawn mower, rusting away inside their garage.
Recently, because of my desire to put up christmas lights, I also had a need for a ladder. I thought about buying a ladder, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that the ladder would probably be used once, to put up christmas lights, during the year. A ladder takes up a lot of space. It just seems wasteful to buy something I will use once a year, that takes up a considerable amount of space in my garage.
I could just go borrow my neighbor’s ladder. I bet he has one. But how could I? Aren’t there rules against talking to your neighbors? Also, if TV has taught me anything. Borrowing things from your neighbor is a very unpleasant affair.