So the latest “thing” in our house is the Swedish death clean. For those of you who aren’t married to Sorcha Lalor, this is a decluttering method that’s meant to spare your loved ones the trouble of sorting through your shit after you’ve dropped the mic.So we spent last Saturday and Sunday filling a skip with all of the things that my wife decided we can live without. This ended up being basically the entire house contents, aport from the Nespresso, the Smeg retro toaster in baby blue and a photograph of her and two of her Mountie mates with Ray D’Arcy after they appeared on Blackboard Jungle and lost to – and I’m not being a dick saying it – Sion Hill. Yeah, no, once she saw the big, empty skip, she ended up getting totally carried away with the idea of filling it. She had this, like, distant look in her eye and she was talking at twice her normal speed, like the time she storted taking caffeine suppositories to try to fit into her old debs dress for the Vico Road and Vico Road-Adjacent Residents’ Association’s Annual Christmas Ball in The Shelbourne.So on Sunday night, the usual happens. Lying in bed, Sorcha ends up having second thoughts. She keeps remembering – and I quote – the sentimental value of various items we’ve thrown into the skip. After a pretty much sleepless night, she hustles me out of the bed at, like, 6am on the bank holiday Monday and tells me to go and bring everything back in.I’m like, “Everything?”And she goes, “Just to be on the safe side.”So – yeah, no – that’s what I end up doing? And it takes me pretty much the entire day. But by the end of the weekend, everything is back in its usual spot, and the madness that gripped my wife for 48 hours has basically disappeared.She’s going, “Oh my God, I am, like, so embarrassed.”[ ‘Ross, I think you’re finally getting your comeuppance from the universe’Opens in new window ]I’m there, “What are you embarrassed about? You tried something and you failed miserably. Like the time you decided that Irish was going to be the first language of our home.”She’s like, “But they’re coming to collect the skip in the morning and it’s empty aport from some grass cuttings and a few fallen branches.”And I’m there, “Sorcha, go to sleep.”Which she eventually does. So then at, like, eleven o’clock the following morning, or some ridiculous time like that, I’m lying in bed and I hear this clanging noise in the front gorden. I stick my head out of the window and I notice Joy Felton – yeah, no, one of the neighbours – looking into the skip.I’m there, “You’re too late, Joy.”She goes, “I beg your pordon?” the way people do around here.I’m like, “What are you on, some kind of scavenger hunt? We changed our minds. We brought it all back in. So, you know, off is the direction in which you might consider focking.”And she goes, “Sorcha put a message up on the Vico Road and Vico Road-Adjacent Residents’ Association WhatsApp, saying that she had an empty skip in the gorden if anyone had anything they wanted to put in it.”And – yeah, no – that’s when I notice that the skip is pretty much full again?I’m like, “What? The actual–?”I tip downstairs. Sorcha is sitting at the island, sipping a coffee, not a care in the world.She goes, “Before you say anything, Ross, I told the neighbours–”I’m like, ‘It doesn’t matter whether I read the list or not. This is not our stuff, Sorcha,’ and then I say the same thing to the dude. I’m like, ‘Dude, this is not our stuff’I’m there, “I know what you told the neighbours. You know that skip is full out there?”She’s like, “It’s better that it’s full than empty. Honestly, Ross, I would have died of embarrassment if they’d come to collect it and there was nothing in it. Also, it was the neighbourly thing to do.”I’m there, “Neighbourly?”She goes, “Yes, Ross, neighbourly.”I’m like, “When have the people around here ever been neighbourly? And don’t mention baking each other banana bread during the first Covid lockdown. No one was in their right mind.”She goes, “It’s nice to be nice, Ross.”I’m there, “I don’t know how the people around here haven’t knocked that out of you. You give them an inch and they take the piss.”All of a sudden, we hear the sound of, like, an orticulated lorry outside?Sorcha goes, “Oh, thank God! I can’t wait until it’s gone, Ross,” and I follow her to the front door and then out into the front gorden.There’s a dude wearing a yellow bib and he’s – yeah, no – taking items out of the skip and leaving them on the gravel path.Sorcha goes, “What’s he doing? Oh my God, what’s he doing?”I’m like, “Dude, what the fock?” because I have a way with words and always have. “You can’t put things like that into a skip,” he goes. [ Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: We’re driving through Donnybrook and Sorcha shouts ‘Stop!’Opens in new window ]I’m there, “Like what?”He gestures to all the shit that’s standing on the gravel, none of which I recognise, by the way. We’re talking six or seven old TVs. We’re talking 70 or 80 paint cans. We’re talking five or six gas cylinders. We’re talking a pile of old tyres. We’re talking an actual fridge – literally. And now it’s all sitting in our front gorden.The dude goes, “You would have been given a list when the skip was delivered – all the things that couldn’t go in it?”Sorcha’s there, “Ross, did you read the list?”‘What did I tell you? The people around here – you give them an inch–’I’m like, “It doesn’t matter whether I read the list or not. This is not our stuff, Sorcha,” and then I say the same thing to the dude. I’m like, “Dude, this is not our stuff.”He’s like, “What do you mean, it’s not your stuff?”I’m there, “As in, like, literally that? My wife put a message on the WhatsApp–” and the dude laughs in a way that suggests he’s seen it all before.He goes, “The WhatsApp, huh? That’s a classic. Sorry, you’ll have to take it up with your neighbours.”I’m there, “But we don’t know which neighbours left what.”And he’s like, “Not my problem, pal,”The skip is lifted onto the back of the truck and a minute or two later the dude drives off, leaving us with all of the neighbourhood’s old junk.I’m there, “What did I tell you? The people around here – you give them an inch–”And she goes, “Seriously, Ross, I don’t want to hear it.”