28 February 2007

I got a compost!

This past weekend I learned that my husband’s packrat tendencies come from his father, who gets it from his father. It’s a stagnant gene pool collecting everything.
Scared me to death.
Confession: I used to be a packrat. I thought everything had sentimental value and was worthy of putting away. No longer. Now I want to throw away everything except for leftovers in the fridge.
Chris: But I might need that someday.
Not if you don’t even remember that you have it because it’s in a pile with three million other unknown objects.
To be fair, he has done a lot this past year to clean up. He cleaned the office and threw away a lot. He cleaned the garage. Again, threw away a lot. We can now fit two cars in there! Yay! I really can’t hold this against him.
In our visit, his father said, hey, go through all this and take what you want.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
I have to say, though, that Chris limited himself. We came away with a stack of records (which I wanted more than he did – I’m a sucker for records), a working phonograph player (again, we both wanted it), old pictures, some paintings his grandmothers and great grandmothers did (none were really any good, to be honest), these blue glass telephone cap things (I don’t know, but I have to admit that they look cool), some random silver pieces that need some love, and a compost. So, I can’t complain. I can’t wait to set up the compost. I want to set it up right on the other side of the window above the sink so that I can just open the window and throw. And one of the records is an unopened Elvis record. I already have Abbey Road. (I stole it from my parents, although I’ve told them a dozen times I took it along with their Steppenwolf and Frank Sinatra. They get upset every time they “discover” this fact, which is about once every few years, though they don’t have a working record player.)
So I guess a little packratedness is good, but don’t tell Chris I said that. I’ll never hear the end or be able to throw anything out again.

10 comments:

~michelle pendergrass said...

Are you talking about these?? I love those! I collect them (I don't have many, but I love the blue ones!)

Erin said...

"I’ll never hear the end or be able to throw anything out again."

Aw, SURE you will. Right out your kitchen window. And into the composter.

Heather said...

Mich - that's them. The blue ones in the top picture. They are pretty cool, actually, and since we have blues and greens and reds in our kitchen and living room, it will make a cool mantle piece or something to that effect. I didn't know you collected them. (Never tell people you collect something - they then think that's all you'll ever want for gifts for the rest of your life.)

Pamela said...

compost will stink under your window.
move it over next to the neighbors yard.

I know exactly about the blue glass.
When I was a kid we had some similiar ones that were green on our electric fence.

Post a picture of grandma ma's paintings

Unknown said...

Cool! I love the idea of you just tossing remains out the window into the composter. I also feel like I am letting go of my packrat tendencies slowly and painfully.

And I knew exactly what you meant about the blue telephone thingies, although I didn't consciously know that they had anything to do with telephones.

My best friend in high school had a stack of Beatles albums that we listened to all the time. Yes, we were pretty cool for 1985.

Anonymous said...

I love that just throw it out the window thing;) packrat i must be though I am trying really hard (espcially now with a small house) to do better. Really I am!!!

My husband though, he's not even trying... grrrrr

greta lynn hernandez said...

I have broken the pakrat syndrome after several--and I mean several--moves over the last 10 years of life.

I have found that I simply transferred it over to e-mails. Do I really need to save every e-mail I have sent since 2004? I finally cleaned out my Outlook box the other day and it felt so freeing!

I did hold on to a few, though. Oh, and, my 1980's record collection still sits in my mother's closet in Virginia. How convenient is that? :)

Enjoy the compost!

Anonymous said...

Ugh...I'M the packrat in our family :/. I'm thankful for Tad and his "tendencies" to get rid of everything, although sometimes I wanna hurt him for this very thing. Most of the time I never miss what he tossed (although I have dug stuff outta the trash before).

What is so wonderful about albums? I dunno, but I totally get it.

I'm a compost wannabe...I have no idea how to really do it (but convenience has GOT to be important, so what Pamela says scares me a bit, lol).

Claudia said...

I actually had a purse once that my mom convinced me to get rid of...and I regretted it because it turns out that I did want to use it again (a few years later...) Now, I try to use things like that up until they really can't be used anymore. Only then will I get rid of them.

L.L. Barkat said...

That's so funny about the compost. 'Cause I told my neighbor she should put hers right under the kitchen window, for the same reason! (great minds? or maybe just unusual minds...)