Daddy Don't Throw That Away!
I hit a slight snag in my week-long attempt to clean up the clutter around our house. The snag is my son, who is quickly becoming a champion packrat and is having trouble parting with any of his belongings.
Not content with his own collections, he wants to keep mine intact as well. As I've been weeding through my stuff, he's right there to encourage me, "Daddy don't throw that away! That's special. You have to keep it!"
When we moved into our new home we were finally able to open boxes that had been stored for years. It was like Christmas morning each day, discovering things that we'd forgotten about. But there are some real head-scratcher items in there. Maybe they had meaning to me at one point, but now much of it's just trivial clutter.
My son doesn't see it that way. Each item that comes out of a box is an "amazing" and "wonderful" treasure to him. It's fun to finally have a visitor to The Museum of Phil, but I can't save everything. There's just not enough space, and the clutter is ultimately kind of depressing.
So, I need a little help from the blogosphere... Here's the first of many knick-knacks and souvenirs that I have piled up in a corner, awaiting their fate:
An official Gallagher brimless "2 Backs" Cap, autographed by the watermelon man himself (yes, I got splattered in 1997). I already know what my son thinks, but what would you do?
Keep it, or toss it?
Not content with his own collections, he wants to keep mine intact as well. As I've been weeding through my stuff, he's right there to encourage me, "Daddy don't throw that away! That's special. You have to keep it!"
When we moved into our new home we were finally able to open boxes that had been stored for years. It was like Christmas morning each day, discovering things that we'd forgotten about. But there are some real head-scratcher items in there. Maybe they had meaning to me at one point, but now much of it's just trivial clutter.
My son doesn't see it that way. Each item that comes out of a box is an "amazing" and "wonderful" treasure to him. It's fun to finally have a visitor to The Museum of Phil, but I can't save everything. There's just not enough space, and the clutter is ultimately kind of depressing.
So, I need a little help from the blogosphere... Here's the first of many knick-knacks and souvenirs that I have piled up in a corner, awaiting their fate:
An official Gallagher brimless "2 Backs" Cap, autographed by the watermelon man himself (yes, I got splattered in 1997). I already know what my son thinks, but what would you do?
Keep it, or toss it?
Permalink posted by Phil at 11:01 PM
5 Comments:
Ebay, Ebay, Ebay....
J.
this must be a universal kid phenomenon. We solved it by making sure the kids were not around or were asleep when we went through things like that.
We did a similar thing when their toys started overflowing... When they were asleep we'd take things that they had not played with in a very long time and showed no attachment to and put it in a big bag in the attic (just in case they did remember it and thought it important). For the most part it's out of sight, out of mind.
As for the hat: you've got to start somewhere, and this seems like a good one to start with.
Freecycle it -- "free to a good home" sort of posting.
My wife wants Seth to actively donate his old stuff so he learns the value of giving.
Thats a keeper at least until he passes, then you can ebay it for more. even more if it has watermellon juce on it. Maby I never grew out of pack rat stage.
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