Keepers, Tossers and Clutter.
Some people are “Keepers.†They find it very difficult to throw things away. By contrast, some people are “Tossers.†They believe that anything that hasn’t been looked at, touched, or smelled in a year can and should be tossed. Keepers, of course, inevitably run into a storage problem, which can only be managed by occasional tossing.
For Keepers, this is never an easy thing to do. I know; I tend to be a keeper, and I only toss things following an exchange of words that usually begins with something like, â€Do you really need this shit? You haven’t touched this shit in years? I mean REALLY!†For example, I only recently and (and mostreluctantly) tossed a bunch of my college textbooks, many of which, I hated to concede, were seriously out-of-date. There is just no getting around it. Pavlov and the conditioned reflex really is old news.
I have several large containers of record albums and 45s (the small records with the big hole in them), which have not seen a turntable in years and may well never see one again. The same goes for reel-to-reel tapes. They sit in a box in a basement awaiting that “some day†when I get my hands on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I still have all my books and notebooks from Law School, and, at this point, tossing them is non-negotiable. So far, I have managed to successfully protect my collection of beer coasters from Germany that have been sitting in a box for decades awaiting the “some day†when I have a bar in the house.
Still, the basement remains a bit of a cluttered mess. It’s the sad lot of Keepers.
However, the Keepers with the most serious problems are the “Accumulator-Keepers.†Unlike the run-of-the-mill Keepers who accumulate things in the normal course of living, the “Accumulator-Keepers†are aggressive acquirers of things. They are the Home Shopping Network, QVC, eBay, and flea market junkies, who simply cannot go a day without buying stuff – and lots of it.
The Accumulator-Keepers face gargantuan storage problems, which often result in clutter that works its way up from of the chock-filled basement and spills out from the jam-packed garage into the house.
TigerHawk linked to a series of photos of a house that belongs to a World Class Accumulator-Keeper. It may be the worst case of clutter I have ever seen. Now I know that you are thinking, “Yo, Jimbo, I’m surfing blogs here, and I really don’t think I need to take up limited blog-surfing time to look at a cluttered house. What’s the big deal? It’s only a house with a bit too much random stuff in it, right?.â€
WRONG. Go look.
I’m a keeper and foolishly married a keeper. We’re only a few disappointments in life short of that lady.
Comment by Sluggo — May 14, 2005 @ 5:04 pm
I’ve haven’t laughed so hard in a long time – the son’s quips with the pictures were hilarious.
But by the time I reached the picture of Mom, I was feeling sorry for the woman. She truly has a sickness.
I wonder what Mom would think if she saw the pictures on the internet – God help both of them.
Comment by Enlighten-New Jersey — May 14, 2005 @ 7:35 pm
I’ve known people like that. It’s horrible.
My wife is a keeper of her stuff and a tosser of my stuff. What’s that called?
Comment by Dash — May 14, 2005 @ 9:49 pm
Marriage Dash. Marriage.
: – )
Comment by Kate — May 14, 2005 @ 11:37 pm
sir, i think keeping boxes of record albums and forty fives signifies nothing except a sincere and pure love for music…even if you havent listened to them in ages…
heh
Comment by mr. helpful — May 15, 2005 @ 12:31 am
I think I saw a documentary about this once. They call it “hoarding.”
Myself, I’m an equal opportunity tosser. Hubby’s stuff gets tossed, even when he clings to it and cries, but so does mine. Toss! Toss! I hate clutter and I tend to define it broadly. If the neighbors would allow it, I’d even help them toss things they have in their yards and around the outsides of their homes. Pots with dead plants. Sun-faded patio furniture. Cats.
Comment by dogette — May 15, 2005 @ 10:16 am
Maybe it’s heredity .. my mom was a “keeper”, as was my grandmother. My difficulties always arise when I decide to ….arrghhh! .. throw something out. Tick. Tick. Not two ticks of the clock go by when I find that, oh yeah, we could have used whatever I just threw out! Then I woefully cry, “ohhh, I KNEW I shouldn’t a’thrown that out!” thereby reinforcing the “keeper” inside …. heh .. BTW, record players are BACK .. yup, just when my hubby and I decided after 30-odd years to get RID OF OUR RECords, 45’s and 33’s … ohhhh …. sob .. sniffle.
Comment by betsy — May 15, 2005 @ 3:13 pm
When I was in high school, my parents and paternal grandparents bought an old farm together. When the current resident of the farmhouse moved out, he left most of his stuff. That house was HUGE, and it was PACKED in much the same way that the house in those pictures. The upstairs had a string of bedrooms (that is, you had to go through the first to get to the second, and through the second to get to the third) that had nothing more than a tiny little path down the middle of them.
We spent three weeks cleaning that house out. I’d like to be able to say that it completely broke me of my “Keeper” mindset, but I can’t. It DID, however, put the brakes on my “Accumulator” mindset.
Comment by Robin S. — May 19, 2005 @ 3:06 pm