Hubby is a pack-rat. Like all such afflicted individuals, he justifies his choices vigorously and with great imagination. His home is full of doo-dads and thingamajigs. In the kitchen cupboard that holds drinking glasses, for example, you'll find a stack of plastic beverage containers from the movies - oversized and decorated with the characters and images of the particular movie they saw - when the kids were seven or eight years old!
The "kids" are now both of "major age," as the law states. But the plastic beverage containers can't be thrown out, because the movies were fun.
CDs and DVDs litter the rooms. There is a bookcase in the basement where, years ago, some attempt to put these items into order was made. They were neatly stacked, even sorted, at the time. But the collection outgrew the bookcase, and new CDs and DVDs never made it into such storage. They are in piles everywhere throughout the house now. In drawers, cubbyholes, baskets, piled on dressers or on the kitchen table. Some of them are music, some are movies, but the bulk of the collection is software. Old software, mind you. Stuff from several operating systems ago. You and I would long ago have chucked this stuff into the garbage or recycling bin. But because Hubby works with computers, he has a pathological need to hang on to every single piece of software that has even been invented, claiming he might need it one day.
The thought of telling someone who asks him for outdated software "Sorry, you're out of luck," is something he just can't stomach.
I've often complained over the years that Hubby leaves everything where it drops. He has a kind of physical memory of where he's left things. Putting them away is counter-intuitive for him.
So basically, the house looks like an episode of "Hoarders." And Hubby is quick to justify each and every doodad I point to with "reasons" it can't be thrown out or given away.
His Offspring have inherited his pack-rat tendencies, along with an inability to put things away. It's confusion everywhere. Watch where you step.
So I felt a little guilty when visiting lately, because I still have "stuff" at the house that's taking up storage space. I feel I need to help him somehow. And while Hubby was digging around for something, I spotted a wooded jewel box tucked away under a dresser.
It was mine, and I distinctly remembered throwing it away a couple of years ago.
Sure, it's a nice-looking box, carved all over and with birds carved onto the lid. Yes, it was a gift at one time. Yes, I probably should have at least given it to Village-des-odeurs, (as we are fond of calling it).
But my complaint was that Hubby snuck out to the garbage and hauled it back in and hid it under a dresser. For two years.
Well, I relieved him of it and put it back in the garbage again, over his complaints of "Somebody paid someone a whole 29 cents to carve that!"
But he left it there.
However, the next day, at work, I was informed that Stepdaughter had seen the box, said "This is way too nice to throw out!" and hauled it back in, again.
And the box is currently sitting on the dining room table.
I guess I'm going to have to go get it myself and take it to Village, like I should have done two years ago.
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