Ruthless Culling

The heritage estate I work at is having a booksale. Great news! I can now start clearing out the piles of books that are driving me nuts. Buying books, lots of them, is an addiction I share with Mr. Nag. It's relatively benign compared to our other addictions but is becoming problematic nonetheless. My goal is to have every one of our books nestled neatly on a bookshelf, not piled behind chairs or on tables. On bookshelves they provide excellent insulation in our otherwise uninsulated and frigid century home. As is they're a fire hazard. Mr. Nag agreed that this is a reasonable goal and that he would ruthlessly cull our motley collection. When I return from work each night he has made little progress. He picks up a book and becomes mesmerized by it, compelled to read just a few pages before relegating it to the discard box. The latest object of his undivided attention is The Book Of Irish Weirdness. This is not working. Mr. Nag insists that he only wants to keep the good art books. Great, I say, I'll only get rid of novels. Let me see them first, he says. Yesterday he arrived at Willowbank with a couple of boxes. When I looked closely they were filled with books that I had put in the attic a year ago, mostly chicklit or outdated travel books.
Mr. Nag is a bit of a hoarder. When we moved to Niagara on the Lake from Toronto many years ago I tossed the boys' outgrown sleepers (all well-worn, some with the feet cut out to accommodate rapid growth spurts). They were garbage and that's where I put them. Several years later I came upon them in the garage. Mr. Nag had rescued the poor little sleepers and was obviously saving them for something; I hate to think what.
There are many areas chez Nag where I do not venture: the attic, several closets, the garage and the two storey addition behind it, to name a few.
I avoid these areas because I am afraid. Afraid that I will kill my husband (although I love him dearly) when I discover a lifetime of detritus lingering there. It's not all bad though. Whenever a friend mentions that they need something (i.e. a statue of Romulus and Remus sucking on their wolf-mother's teats, a yard-sized tent or an Ulu knife) Mr. Nag runs to the garage and ferrets out whatever they desire. The spring on the projection screen at work broke. He was able to provide a replacement pronto from his cache.
When we first met I used to tease Mr. Nag and compare him to a bower bird filling his nest with colourful objects to attract a mate. It's been almost thirty years, I'm attracted, it's time to stop already.
None of this bodes well for the cull.