One Taser, two bras and a framed picture that never made the newspaper were a few of the items I had to pack or discard when move-out day arrived.
Add an exercise bike, two small refrigerators, a bookcase and thousands of pages of legal documents, not to mention hundreds more pages of phone numbers called or texted by a philandering public figure.
Haul all that and much more down a steep flight of stairs, and you have an idea what move-out day was like for me.
After almost 15 years, I was leaving my job as the Conway bureau reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The Taser had come to me by way of my dad, who was concerned because I often worked alone at night.
I remember putting the Taser on top of my filing cabinet beside a copy of Blue Diary, Alice Hoffman's novel about a civic-minded husband who's also a murderer. There the Taser lay for more than a decade, never used, batteries long dead.
Many items, including the bras, went into the trash or recycling bins that day. Removing scratchy bras is an unsung benefit of working alone.
But I kept the picture of Lu Hardin, taken as he whispered to me on his last day as president of the University of Central Arkansas. Hardin was telling me I wouldn't be seeing much more of him.
Moments later, he resigned under pressure over a contentious $300,000 bonus and a faked memo. He ultimately pleaded guilty to two federal felonies and served probation.
The picture reminds me that even on what likely was one of Hardin's worst days, he treated me respectfully, not as an "enemy of the people."
By contrast, a Hardin supporter went online and branded me "the hyphenated one," took aim at my family, and suggested I should be a better housewife.
And another now-former public official who shall remain anonymous here complained mightily and repeatedly to my editor about "that woman" because he apparently didn't like my reporting.
Worse, though, was the day this newsmaker spoke to a large group of public employees and someone asked when he thought the negative publicity surrounding his leadership would end. The official proceeded to cite an American woman's average life expectancy and suggested it wouldn't end until she was dead.
Some of my friends at that meeting couldn't wait to tell me what he had said. But as for me, I was all smiles when I learned he had underestimated my age. Other than that, I don't remember how many years he thought I had left.
Had he only seen the dates of some of the honors and awards hanging on my office walls, he would have known I was older.
There was, for instance, my Arkansas Traveler certificate signed by a young Gov. Bill Clinton as I prepared to move to Illinois in 1983.
We probably all remember at least one thing we'd do differently had we known then what we know now. My Clinton memory falls in that category.
I was one of two people working on a Friday night at The Associated Press in Little Rock. It was a prep football night, and we were overwhelmed with phone calls reporting game scores.
That's when Clinton, who was trying to get re-elected after losing two years earlier, returned my much-earlier call. I was pursuing a story about the death penalty, a topic only slightly less controversial in Arkansas than high school football.
"I can't talk to you now," I told Clinton. "It's prep football night."
"That's OK," he replied, and said I could call him later.
It's going to be late, maybe 11 or 12, I replied.
When I called him back at almost midnight, he politely answered my questions. So Clinton forever ranks right up there with Hardin on likable newsmakers, even when I disagree with them.
Since then, I've interviewed former President Jimmy Carter about his Georgia boyhood and another future president, Donald Trump, about the now-defunct USFL in which he once owned a team.
The Trump interview stands out because I can't remember it--just the USFL meeting in 1980s Chicago where I met him. An AP sports writer on assignment with me that day reminded me of it later. I still ask myself: How can anyone forget Donald Trump?
After all, Trump is not like me--middle-class and unassuming--though we do share short tempers. But I'm not the president. I'm just one of those cynical journalists some folks love to hate.
So, I guess I need to spread the word: That woman is back.
Debra Hale-Shelton can be emailed at dhaleshelton@gmail.com.
Editorial on 10/20/2019