The crowds gather in abundant numbers and gaze in awe as it is time, once again, for the Semiannual Invitational and Garage Cleaning Ceremony.

I don't know how it happens. Twice a year, usually the first nice weekend in the Spring and the last nice weekend in the fall, I subject myself to the tedious task of making array out of the disarray that has developed in my garage over the past six months.

After every cleaning, I always say the same thing to myself, "Now, let's keep it that way." But, somehow, sometime between May and November and May again, piles of boxes, papers and assorted potpourri make its way into the garage. The best that I can figure is that the neighbors are sneaking stuff from their garage into mine, while I'm asleep.

The ritual is the same. Usually, on a beautiful, warm Saturday morning, I step into the garage from the kitchen, take a slow pan of the room, think about breakfast and then retreat to where things are slightly more organized.

After procrastinating through my meal with such diversionary tactics as, "How about another cup of coffee?" or, "Would I like to see another section of the paper?", I head into the field of battle armed with trash bags, broom, dust pan and wonder where I can lease a front-end loader.

I open the overhead garage door to reveal to my unexplained bounty to the neighborhood. Starting from the front and working my way to the back, I survey each new treasure that has come to the Megill garage for diplomatic immunity. After being inspected, it is then brought out of the garage to the driveway to be categorized. The item goes to the left if it is food for the Hefty bag, to the right if it is a keeper.

First out are the fifty zillion recycle pails. There's one for clear glass, one for brown glass, green glass, indigo glass. There are pails for tin cans, aluminum cans, iron cans, cans that had subsistence in them beginning with the letters A through M. (Cans with food from the N through Z range get eaten by the borough assigned billy goat.)

As I dig further through the rubble, I find assorted gifts including the stuffed, purple spotted owl given to me by Aunt Lucy and Uncle Ed for my birthday and a box that was never opened revealing a six month old cheese log. (This could have been the reason for the angry phone calls in the middle of the night.)

On I go, through my safari into the deepest, darkest jungles of "boxdom." And, what is this? A box of record albums I neither remember buying nor, after looking at them, claim to have bought. There are such titles as: Freddy Fender and Luciano Pavorotti Together In Concert, The Harmonicats Play Black Sabbath and a Time/Warner album of Sound Effects Made at a Teamster's Bar-B-Q.

Then I come across a box of old letters and photographs sent to me by my mother from Florida. The letters are pretty mundane, but the photographs create a timeout in my tournament of trash. The first is a class picture of me in kindergarten with my signatory cowlick the shape of a teepee. Next is my junior high school picture proving that thirteen is not a good age to document a young boy's looks. Finally, a picture of me and my date at the senior prom with my Q-Tip physique and pants that are almost touching my ankles.

After breathing in a paper bag from hyperventilating from laughing for such a long time, the trash is removed, the floor is swept and once again the garage is roomy enough to actually fit an automobile. (My car knows better.)

So, as the sun sets in the west, I bring the door down on my clean and neat garage and, if you listen really close, you can almost hear me say, "Now, let's keep it that way." I know it won't, because, after all, garage is garbage without the "b".