As I drove through the neighborhood this afternoon, I saw signs of a terrible disease invading the area. I'm not sure what the medical term is, but I'll just call it NGS. Neat Garage Syndrome. 

A garage equals old shoes, a couple of parted out bicycles, half empty cans of spray paint, and an assortment of spiders, beetles and such. Not the garages I've been seeing. There are peg boards, brackets on the wall, and a place for everything; everything in its place. I just shake my head when I see them. 

I know things have changed, but people, I need someone to drag a couple of rather large, heavy, rusted car parts and put them on a bench. How else will young boys learn the life lesson of banged and bleeding knuckles?

We need to see an old radio with just one working speaker, a 5 by 4 foot sign that mysteriously showed up in the garage one day, and a set of golf clubs that include one through five woods actually made of wood. If you need three old basketballs, all with various amounts of air but none with enough to bounce…come see me.

Instead of things in piles, we see cabinets with locks and extra shelves anchored into the ceiling of the garage. If you look carefully you’ll see matching sets of garden gloves. The other day we saw a tiled garage floor. Tiled! Great Scott!

If these folks don't shake the disease soon, how will they ever realize the relief of a huge sneeze from layers of dust?

How will they ever get their "stripes" without banging their shins on a piece of jagged metal that has no purpose, but never gets thrown away?

If their garages stay too neat and tidy, how will they ever enjoy the intense stretching exercises involved in getting out of the car when you can't open the door all they way because of all the lawn and garden equipment laying against the wall, just under empty hooks? 

I don't know, I just don't know.