Got kids? You will. Then you’ll have stuff. Stuff to cherish forever: Paper turkeys, valentines, birthday cards, sock puppets, paper clip necklaces, origami birds, clay hippos, drawings, paintings, and popsicle stick stars. Not to mention the book reports, styrofoam fjords and science projects. Not to mention photos and souvenirs and toys and detritus scavenged from the park and the beach and the coin collection and trophies for showing up at soccer and Yu-Gi-Oh cards and stickers, felt scraps, beads and buttons, et cluttera, et cluttera, et cluttera.

“Trash it,” you say? …And risk damaging their fragile young psyches even further? No siree! That Pilgrim diorama goes on the coffee table for all to enjoy. (And, with Jackson Pollocks selling for seven figures, who are we to judge a potato print?) Throw away the Home Depot paint swatches that my daughter “REALLY, REALLY NEEDED!!!”? There’s a week of sobbing right there.

Parents, you get the picture. But where are you going to put the picture? Because day after day, the precious crap mounts up… crowding us out of house and home. Multiplied by 50 million U.S. kids, this crisis needs more than a cabinet-level post; it needs a warehouse-level post … and a hollowed out underground fortress in Nevada.

And fortunately, thanks to the Department of Energy, we have one at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The government wants to use this Las Vegas-adjacent hollowed-out granite peak to store nucular waste. But that’s insane even by Washington standards. Those fuel rods may be spent, but don’t kid yourself - they’ve still got a lot of half-life to live. So while the braintrust in DC turns its back on 150 million pounds of decaying uranium, for those of us who live a convenient day’s drive away, that’s not much protection.

Sure, Yucca Mountain National Radioactive Wilderness would make the ideal off-roaders’ paradise. But, considering the risks to our drinking water and showgirls, there must be a better place to hang this lethal albatross. Like, Washington, DC, say.

Fiscally prudent budget cuts have surely emptied out enough office space inside the Beltway to accommodate the waste. And because radioactive decay is merely a theory, a few stray beta particles whizzing around the nation’s capital shouldn’t be cause for alarm. Even if there were a mishap, FEMA is close at hand. That leaves Yucca Mountain available to serve as the cornerstone of my plan for warehousing America’s nuclear family waste.

Here’s the idea in a nutshell: Once a week, after bedtime, parents will gather their kids’ junk into bar-coded plastic bins and set them out on the curb. Department of Stuff Management trucks collect the boxes and deliver them to rail depots for the trip out to the desert. Inside the cavernous granite walls of Yucca Mountain, thousands of DSM workers, moving with the efficiency of Bond-arch-villain minions, will sort the boxes by social security number for easy storage and retrieval. (Note to Wall Street: Tupperware [TUP] is a strong buy!)

In the face of a crisis, this is bold, decisive leadership. This is what uniting, not dividing is all about. Because, when American floors are cleared of March’s paper shamrocks, we can all find common ground to stand on. In blue and red states alike, homes will be neater and parents calmer. And, this I believe: what makes partisan rancor so bitter these days isn’t really about the issues - it’s about twisting an ankle on a Bratz doll. You’ve got to get mad at someone…and yelling at the kids just gets you an appearance on Dr. Phil. What’s more, my plan creates jobs and restores the 450 million Mom-hours lost each year to glitter-vacuuming.
Finally, storing our nuclear family waste at Yucca Mountain is a win-win for parents and children. If little Taylor turns out to be the next Picasso, just fill out Form 672B, reclaim “Paint Smeared on Leaf #7,” and sell it on eBay. And if Madison demands to know what happened to Mr. Mittens’ Cat Day card, you can look right into those big, sad eyes and assure her: “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s in a very, very, very, very, very safe place.”

By Toby Muller