If You’re Like Me, You Have Too Much Crap!
I’ve come to think that ninety plus percent of humanity, at least of that segment that lives in America, are closet horders. I just moved four fully packed box truck loads of stuff twenty miles, and trust me, we’re horders! The wickedest part wasn’t the packing and moving, it was the unpacking. Pulling stuff out of boxes, and going, “What the @#!$$*&!@# is this? Why did we buy it to begin with, why did we keep it and dear God, why did we move it!
Because we’re horders, by and large, is the simple and embarrassing answer! You no doubt are familiar with the way stuff seems to multiply. You can toss one old pair of shoes in a closet, and six months later, thirty pairs will come oozing out when you open the door! For years we joked at our house that stuff either mates in dark closets and basements, or divides by fission to reproduce. If I hadn’t just moved ten tons of stuff, I’d likely find that funny.
The sad fact is that we do this to ourselves. You buy stuff that you think will be “useful” or “cool” to own. You can’t pass up a sale either. I mean, who can pass up a chance to have a gold inlayed, hand crafted turd display, when it’s eighty percent off! You get the idea. Not only do we buy crap we don’t need, or will be bored with in three seconds, people give us things. No one wants to hurt a friend or relative’s feelings by tossing out whatever gift they gave you for National Biscuit Day! You’ll toss it in the closet, garage or attic and pray they die soon, so you can toss it in the trash guilt free. But they never die!
So you end up, buried in all this…stuff. (that wasn’t my first choice of terminology, but this is a family friendly blog!). You know you’d like to give some of it away, but a large part of what accumulates is stuff so useless the Thrift store won’t take it! I had the trash people at our last address put some of the stuff I was trying to toss out back by the garage, with a note informing me that the landfill has some standards, which my trash violated. Bummer.
We all hate to throw out good things, or even stuff that just needs a bit of repair. But we end up cramming it out of sight, and hoping we can move to a bigger place before the advancing tide crushes us. Worse, we insure the junk, in case the house burns down! I did discover one thing about having all this trash around, though. My kids all dread having me die, and being stuck having to deal with it! I told all of them that I’m going to leave it to the child who’s shown the least gratitude. You’d be surprised how nice they all treat me and the missus now! Even better, they only give me cash for gifts. At least they’re smart enough to want to avoid making the horde more wickedly huge!
By the way, there’s a reason God permitted the invention of the dumpster!
Jack