My latest column is up at Project Simplify:

The Not-So-Simple Life: The Storage Trap

by Lance Brown

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We’ve all seen this scene:

There is a jungle path, down which strolls a naïve protagonist—probably wearing a pith helmet or safari hat, and definitely wearing khaki. pithhelmet

Said protagonist is ever-busy gazing at the jungle wonders, checking his trail map, and being on alert for poisonous snakes and head-sized mosquitoes. As such, it’s a coin toss whether our would-be hero will be looking at the ground with enough attention to see what is obvious to all of us: there’s a spot in the trail coming up that doesn’t look right.

Too many branches with too many leaves are gathered in one area just a few steps ahead, and from what we all know of jungle trails, that can only mean one thing. Those branches are just providing rough cover for a pit-style trap—obvious to those paying full attention to where they’re going…but for those who aren’t…a one-way ticket to being a featured buffet item at a cannibal Quinceañera.

We can all see the trap, easily. We’re not caught up in the wonders of the jungle, and the trap is really pretty obvious if you just take a second to look at it. You can see the pit’s inescapable darkness right through the branches there. Honestly, you’d have to be either oblivious or really really distracted to miss something like that.

But then again, the jungle savages wouldn’t keep making those traps if there weren’t people who fell for them. (And into them.)

All of which has me wondering: should I rent a storage unit again?

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Read the rest at Project Simplify