A Place for My Stuff

Zits (the comic strip)

Somebody showed me this piece of clutter-related humor recently:

http://www.zitscomics.com/?date=02-04-2012#comic-image

 

 

Facing the Wardrobe, 2012

Dealing with clothes is a topic that I've blogged about before.  Well, that was over two years ago, and some things have accumulated since then.

Here were some of the recently found wearable oddities:

• Poor People's Pub shirt, 2000-2001.  This is easily one of my all-time favorite restaurants, and I've been going there since I was a kid.  They make a new shirt every year.  I haven't worn this one in years though, and I already have some similar shirts.  My father-in-law collects these shirts, but my wife said that he probably already has this one.  I think I'll toss this one into the Goodwill bag.
• Two high school gym class shirts.  I went to a private high school, and even phys. ed. class had a dress code.  We had to at least wear one of these shirts, the matching shorts, a jock strap, and sneakers.  The shorts had a space where you'd write your last name in magic marker.  The shirts had one too.  They were also reversible, I guess to make it easy if you wanted to break the class into two teams to play.
  I absolutely HATED gym class.  I always did.  Hated, hated, HATED it.  It always had less to do with actual physical development, and everything to do with pretentious, asshole jocks.  It does NOT build any sort of social skills or "teamwork".  If anything, I'm convinced that events like the Columbine shootings wouldn't happen if gym class didn't exist.  Why this is still a part of public academia, I have no idea.  On top of all that, I have never been a sports fan, and to this day, I still hate sports.
  I should be BURNING this shirt.
• A shrunken sweater.  At this point I should just shrink it further to make a ski mask.  But it's easier to just add it to the Goodwill bag.
• A "Rock Cleveland" shirt that my father got me on one of his business trips, who knows when.  It's pretty small now.
• 34" waist pants.  Oh yeah, right, like I could still fit into these.
• A black "University of Charlotte" shirt.  This was presumably came from my dad too.  And it's rather small now.  I'm guessing I kept it so that i could use the black cloth for something.  Well, that hasn't happened.  Into the bag you go.
• Old work shirts.  I don't mean "work" as in blue-collar shirts to work in.  I mean free shirts that I got from companies I worked with.  This included at least one of those pull-over, partially-zippered sweatshirts.  I really don't wear these.
• Two nostalgic shirts.  These are tough to get rid of.  One is a fraternity rush shirt from my first year of college.  The other is a shirt I got made up in the mall when I was in the 8th grade, that shows a photo of metallica but with my face superimposed on Kirk Hammet's.  I think I'll pack them away and think about it further.  I've still made a lot of progress.

One last look at the bureau

OK, one final look at the bureau-top junk that got removed.

Before I continue though, I'd like to say that I hope this isn't just seen as a "listing" experience.  When I blog about things I've gotten rid of, I do get some idea of why I might have kept something in the first place, where some of the common problem areas are, and how I can hopefully eliminate some of that in the future.

• Stuff to shred.  Not all of this junk was to be carelessly thrown in the trash.  Some stuff was better suited for the shredder.  Like a piece of paper that had by bank account info on it.  Yeah, that gets shredded and burned.  Also, these papers that came with my prescriptions.  Do you get these too?  Especially if the stuff you're picking up comes in a tube?  You go to a pharmacy to pick something up, and they give you a few huge stapled pieces of paper with information you don't need, and in my case, my last name spelled wrong across the top in big printed letters.  Then on top of that, there's a set of instructions in the box itself.  Who needs this?  I certainly don't.
• A clear plastic bag that went to...maybe that guitar stand I bought a few months ago?  Maybe something else?  Well, enough guessing.
• Hate note from my wife.  I don't need guilt-trips in verbal form, let alone in written form.
• Tag from wife's yellow gold chain.  "14k", and a big price tag of which I only had to pay a fraction (Thank you, JC Penny!).  I probably should have photographed these last two items together, for comedic value.
• 2011 Concert Venue Schedule.  Yes, it has the band we saw listed in there.  But I really don't need this as a souvenir.
• Free brownies coupon.  We could not find this brand in ANY of the stores.  And the coupon expired last November.  I tried.
• Ozzy article.  My father cuts things like this out of the paper and snail-mails them to me on occasion.  I appreciate the thought, and I do read the article.  But 6 months later, I think I can say in most cases that it's safe to throw these away.
• More paper items.  Including a slip of paper with a BluRay player model on it (and I subsequently bought), a list of karaoke song numbers and a note on the back where an old karaoke cohort of mine is now hosting (which I don't think I'll ever get to), plus 3 envelopes (which initially freaked my wife out, because she thought I was throwing out a card.  Nope, just the envelope, honey.)
• 2 Hotel Key Cards.  Most hotels these days have long since ditched metal keys in favor of programmable, cheap plastic card keys.  Some of these we end up keeping as souvenirs.  But chances are that if it was a really good trip, you already have a ton of other souvenirs anyway that are better.  Time to ditch these.
• And finally, some clothing tags.  You know, you buy a shirt or a pair of pants, and see these things attached to them.  Some of them are even facy, like they're made of cork or something.  But if you've already been wearing something to the point that you know you're not going to return it, then these are junk.

Fighting the BureaucraZy - triangles and cards

Some more crazy things I found in my enormous pile on my bureau.  I think cataloging this stuff has taken longer than getting rid of it!  Oh well, that's why I have a blog.

• Broken triangle.  If you look in the stationary aisle of any drug store, you'll usually find a set of drawing triangles. Namely, you'll see a 30-60-90 triangle and a 45-45-90 triangle, sometimes packed with a straight ruler and a compass.  This is one of the 30-60-90 ones, and it has some history.  It came in a plastic case with some similar drawing tools, which I got sometime when I was in 6th or 7th grade.  I started using the case as a general pencil case.  I'm sure at some point I threw out the case, but the original contents are probably lingering around.
  
  I managed to hang on to this fragile triangle without breaking it.  At least, until recently.  I saw that one of the coners was broken off, and I'm pretty sure that happened in recent years. 
  
  In these past 25+ years, have I EVER used it?  Not that I can remember.  Does ANYBODY ever use these things?  Well I went to college for math, and I sure didn't use it for any of those classes. My wife and I however had a friend whose 11 year-old son wanted to serious get into drawing, and one of the comic-drawing drawing books we gave him mentioned all of the tools you should have: kneaded eraser, T-square, and so on, including the triangles.  So I was carring this triangle in my pocket and was waiting to give it to him.  Well, to make a long story sort, we're not associating with the mother any mre.  If the kid needs a triangle, he doesn't need a broken one.  Into the trash you go, triangle.

• Business cards, business cards, business cards!  These never diappear completely, do they?  Here are some examples of what I found:
  • A local music store who has since moved to a new location.  No need for this card.
  • Business card for a Vietnamese restaurant.  My wife and I lifed this place, but they're out of the way, and the only reason we went in the first place is because we got a Restaurant.com coupon for them, and they're no longer taking them.  Time to throw this out.
  • Appointment cards.  You know how they give these to you when you go to the dentist, the doctor, a massage therapist, etc?  Do you still hang on to these after the appointment is long over?  There's no need to.  If this is a place you go back to, you'll have their number elsewhere, or have future visits already written in your calendar.  Or even if you don't, they'll typically call you to give you a reminder.  I AM however glad I took a quick glance at these before I tossed them.  A while back I had an optometrist tell me I had "lattice degeneration", as she wrote on the card.  Good to know the name of it!

• Paper print-outs.  Several things printed out from the computer, which I don't really need now as a print-out:
  
  • Printed emails from a friend regarding a project we wanted to do.  Well, we still haven't done it.  I really don't know at this point if I'll ever get him to collaborate on something!  Besides, I have the emails still saved on-line.  So I can ditch this.
  • Likewise, a couple of math problems I was working on.  I may visit these in the future, so I put them in my "math" folder on my computer, and got rid of the paper.
  • Printed, edited list from Wikipedia.  And I can go back there to look it up again.  No need for the paper, even if it was a help back at that time I printed it.
  • Job description for a position I was going for in my last company, but couldn't get.  I sure don't need a reminder for it.
  • Old Job vs. New Job comparison.  I changed jobs recently.  It was a really difficult choice to make, and I was weighing my options.  So naturally I made a list to get my thoughts written down.  But what's done is done.  Time to ditch this.

The Non-Federal Investigation of Bureau: candies

I could easily make a dozen posts on the stuff I found on my bureau alone.  But I'll try to do this in groups.

One of the more glaring types of clutter you might find are things that are edible, in places where you should only expect to find non-edible items.  Even the types of consumable items that don't seem to have an expiration date, suddenly DO look "expired" in this situation.  It's the "ewww!" factor, for me anyways.

• Pepermint candy.  I must have grabbed this from a restaurant when I was leaving, shoved it in my pocket, then took it out and left it on the bureau before I went to sleep that night.  Then it got buried, like a fossil.
• Cough drop.  It reminds me of Rich Hall's Sniglet called "Lynthlyptus", defined as "Any cough drop found in one's pocket after a few days".
• Bottle of Nose-Spray.  Yes, I know, you can't eat nose spray.  But I figured I'd list this here, just for the "ewww" factor.  And not just because I just used the words "eat" "nose" and "spray" in the same sentence in that order.  Two things I learned about Afrin 12-hour nose spray: 1) it works, but 2) it's physically addictive.  When the package says "Do not use this product for more than 2-3 days", they mean it.  Keep using for more than that, and you can't clear your nose without it.  Thankfully, I haven't used it in years.  I could easily fill a blog post talking about my history of nasal problems, the surgery for my deviated septum, what products I've taken since then, etc., but I'm not going to.  I'm only going to say this: the Afrin bottle here had an expiration date of December 2008.  Afrin, I banish thee!
• Bag of Candy-coated Almonds. These were a take-home gift at a wedding.  Or whatever the term is for those things.  There was a little poem or writing attached that explained the symbolic significance of the candies and why there were that number in the bag, etc.  I have plenty of photos from that wedding, so I sure don't need a sack of stale nuts.  "What the hell IS this?" asked my wife.  "Almonds", I replied.  Then the exchange went something like this:
  "When the hell did you get them?"
  "You don't want to know."
  "Where?"
  "I told you, you don't want to know."
  "Just tell me! More than ten years ago?"
  "No, I CAN say that they're less than ten years old."
  "What are they from?"
  "Sigh...Dave and [Dave's wife's name]'s wedding."
  "Dave [last name]?"
  "Yes, that Dave."
  "When did he get married?!?"
  "I dunno. Uh, five years ago?  Six years ago?"
  "Jesus!"
  "Hey, I TOLD you that you didn't want to know!"

Daddy's Junky Music, 1972-2011

This is late news, but I just found out about it as I was trying to check up on some of my lingering receipts (see previous post).

Daddy's Junky Music was a big chain of stores that bought and sold used musical instruments.  They were based in New England.  Like many musicians from New England, my first instruments were bought at a Daddy's store, and I'd traded and bought countless other things from them ever since.  In fact it was to Daddy's where I traded in a ton of extra musical stuff I was no longer using, sometime in the last year or two (I tried searching for a link to where I might have blogged about it, but I can't find it). 

Sadly, Daddy's abruptly closed their doors back in October 2011.

In a way, I'm not really too surprised.  The clerks at all these places were typically dicks.  Like most music store clerks, they were once-aspiring-and-failed rock stars, bitterly sitting behind a counter and always busy with something or somebody else.  The staff at other stores like Guitar Center have almost always been, at least in my experience, more attentive and sometimes more knowledgeable. 

Of course, I know that's not the main reason why Daddy's closed.  The main reason they closed is the same reason why a lot of brick-and-mortar ("B&M") specialty stores close: not being able to compete with the internet.  Even before the internet became a house-hold thing, I knew that if you wanted to buy or especially sell an instrument, it was always better financially to go through the want-ads.  If you wanted to sell something, Daddy's would give you next to nothing for it.  As my lucrative guitar-trading uncle had always said, "Daddy's is a rip-off".  The only reason I sold a bunch of stuff to them that summer was to get rid of the stuff once and for all, instead of having to place a dozen different ads to Craigslist and follow up on all of them.

But the internet had hurt Daddy's in more ways than just providing a forum to buy and sell things 1-on-1.  A lot of warehouse places like MusiciansFriend.com can sell you brand new instruments for cheaper than Daddy's and other stores can compete with. 

What's the advantage of having a B&M musical instrument store?  The first and most obvious one is that get a chance to play something before you buy it.  A second advantage is that you get to talk to people who are knowledgeable about the various models of various instruments and can make suggestions for you.  Some of them also host clinics, which is when a well-known musician will give a lecture and do Q&A afterwards.  Then there's just the joy of not knowing what you'll find when you walk into a used music store.

Unfortunately, it's all too easy for somebody to try out an instrument in a store, get free advice from a clerk, then walk out the door and order the same instrument on-line, without a penny going to the B&M store.  Hell, lots of people can whip out their smartphone to go check prices and buy the item on-line, BEFORE even leaving the store!

So while it's sad to see Daddy's go, again I'm not too surprised.  As one of the articles below mentions "If you can't make it with a music store across the street from Berklee, you’re pretty much sunk".  It does make me wonder how rare used musical instrument brick-and-mortar stores are going to be in the future.  There's only so much a teenager can learn by flipping around YouTube.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20111027/NEWS02/710279965&source=RSS

http://articles.boston.com/2011-11-05/ae/30364212_1_berklee-college-music-school-instrument

http://www.eagletribune.com/latestnews/x717137553/Daddys-Junky-Music-closes-all-12-stores

The Non-Federal Investigation of Bureau: Receipts

One of the new target areas on my most recent "to-do" list was my bureau.  Namely, the top of my bureau.  Lots of stuff collects there.  Come to think of it, that was the same situation with my father when I was growing up.  The bureau top became quite the stuff magnet.

I started to tackle this once and for all.  It's still a work in progress as I type this, mainly because it's been a careful process of sorting through it.  I'm most certainly going to end up throwing away most of it, but given that some of these things include papers with bank account numbers, receipts, etc., it's worth dividing the trash into "to be shredded" and "not to be shredded" piles.

The most popular type of item was, indeed, receipts.  Usually I'm very good with keeping receipts and keeping them separate.  Normally I keep them in my wallet, then eventually transfer them to an envelope when my wallet gets too full.  They then get transferred to their respective bank or credit card statements before being filed away with them. 

Still, I managed to find 20 loose receipts on my bureau.  Some of these were on my wife's credit card (she doesn't want to throw them away, but doesn't want to keep them either, so if I'm around she hands them to me).  Some were just too big to fit into my wallet.  Here's just some of what I found:

• 2 receipts for CVS.  For those of you who don't live in a region where there's a CVS and never heard of them before, CVS is actually one of the largest drug store chains in the US, second only to Walgreen's.  Growing up, my mother told me that it stood for "Convenient Variety Store", though it turns out that it's actually "Consumer Value Stores".  Of course, they never use that name, and I doubt half of the CVS employees know what it stands for.
  I guess I saved these for the "Extra Value Dollars" they usually print on the end of the receipts.  That's their cute euphemism for "coupons".  Usually when you end up buying a certain product, your coupon will be for some rival product of the same type.
  I used to go there a lot, but since moving in 2010 I haven't been around a CVS, so I go elsewhere.  So there's really no use for coupons or receipts like these.

• Several receipts from Daddy's Junky Music.  I'll have more to say about them in a future blog post.
• Concert ticket receipts.  And yes, of course they're for concerts that I already went to.  The funny thing about Ticket Master is that they not only give you a printed receipt in the envelope on a sheet of paper, but an extra printed ticket that just has your name and address on it.  My wife saw this in the pile I was throwing away and gasped "Don't throw out my ticket stubs!"  I showed it to her and explained that it was just a receipt.
• Ski rental receipt.  Now that was actually quite handy to have at the time.  They put me in ski boots that were ridiculously tight, even by ski boot standards.  So I went back to the lodge, showed them the receipt, and they set me up with new boots.  That was a great trip.  It was also about a year ago.  And I have photos from the event, so I don't even need this as a souvenir.
• A sticker type of receipt that says "Nonrefundable if lost or stolen" with a bunch of numbers on it.  What did this go to?  I have no idea.  I'm guessing maybe the lift ticket I got with the skiing trip.
• Dunkin' Donuts gift card receipt.  I have $5.82 left on my card.  So what?  (An amusing side note: many years ago I got directions to a wedding reception.  The lady who wrote the directions actually wrote one of the steps as "Turn right at the Duncan Donuts".  Since when did chocolate crullers become part of a royal Scottish clan?)
• Hotel receipt.  You know how they print out a full 8.5x11" sheet for this and slip it under your door before you leave?  Well, you can't fit that in a wallet.  But the bureau is no place for it either.  Into the shredder you go.
• A printed receipt from Edible Arrangements.  The person I gave the gift to got them.  That was back in 2010.  I could have started growing a new tree with the seeds by now.
• Optometrist visit receipt. All this really reminded me was that the bastards don't take my new eye insurance plan, when I thought they did.

 

The Dangers of Too Much Stuff (article)

An article that came to my attention recently:

"The Dangers of Too Much Stuff - How first responders, especially the fire service, are teaming up with human service professionals to tackle safety issues related to compulsive hoarding."

http://www.nfpa.org/publicJournalDetail.asp?categoryID=2337&itemID=54582&src=NFPAJournal&cookie_test=1

 

Stephanie's Smurfette Folder

Recently I was asked "When do you think your clutter/hoarding problem first started?"  Honestly, I'm not sure.  For some people with too much stuff, I guess it traces back to one particular traumatic event, like having a spouse die, or being assaulted, etc.  But for me, I don't think it traces back to one particular time.  I know some people would like to think that there's one overly-simple, Freudian reason for having clutter (e.g, "You're building a psychic wall of protection!").  But such answers are just that: overly-simplified.

I can however think back to earlier times in my life when some of the same underlying components of the pack rat mentality were already there.  One of those bigger underlying components to being a packrat, for me at least, was not being able to see things being torn up and thrown away by other people (let alone myself doing the tearing and throwing away!).  I suppose I should say "is" and not "was", since it's still one of those little things that irks me, but I'm honestly nowhere nearly as bad as I used to be. 

Two incidents immediately come to mind:

When I was 6 years old and in first grade, a classmate (let's call her Stephanie) came up to me, holding up her empty Smurfette portfolio in front of my face.  It was rather beat up from use.  She said, "You see this Smurfette folder?"  Then before I could say anything, she proceeded to proudly rip it up in front of me.  First into halves, then stacking and into quarters, then trying to rip some more.  Later that day I saw a brand new green Garfield folder on her desk.

But as I was watching that ripping, what was running through my mind was "No, wait!  Maybe I could use that!  I'm a boy, but maybe there's some way to cover up the Smurfette on the front and still use it as a folder?  Tape it up, maybe?  But...but..."  For her, it was a no-brainer: out with the old, in with the new.  It's taken me 30 years to start to reach that same 6 year-old girl's mentality of feeling proud to throw something out, especially to the point where you want to let others know about it.

The other event that comes to mind was at one of the first jobs I ever had.  When I was in high school I worked in a department store, and at some point we had a stack of empty shoe boxes in a corner behind the cashier.  One day the big boss made a rare visit.  As she looked around and chatted with the other one or two workers whom she knew, she told me to get rid of the boxes.  Now I'm not a dumb person by any stretch, but this idea simply didn't make any sense to me at the time.  Get RID of them?  This whole stack of perfectly good shoe boxes?  What?  I mean you can't just throw them away like they were garbage, right?  I asked for clarification.  "Get RID of them?"  So 5 minutes later, they still weren't done.  I asked again.  Finally the boss just grabbed one of the boxes, tore it up in her hands with swift frustration, and handed it to me with a recomposed but somethat belittling smile, as if to say "That's how you do it, my little naive one!"

Again, these events themselves didn't traumatize me into becoming a hoarder of clutter.  I mention them to point out that some of the underlying cognitive seeds have seemingly been there forever.  And again, this old pet peeve is not the one and only reason for me having so much stuff.  But it's some part of the equation I'm sure.

Clutter Diet, and questioning their 20 questions

I recently just found out about a decluttering blog called the Clutter Diet blog.  It's really the blog for a more general site and book called The Clutter Diet.

I haven't gotten around to extensively look at it, but one article worth mentioning is their "20 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Keeping Anything."  The list is mostly geared towards moving, but some of the same questions are still good to ask when it comes to buying or keeping stuff in general.  Some of these other questions...well let's say that they probably wouldn't motivate me personally.  But here's my take on each one.

First, the ones that I thought were a little ambiguous, possibly ineffective for many pack rats, or just plain weird:

• "What is the worst thing that might happen if I donate or recycle it?"  Keep in mind that hoarders are good at rationalizing answers against this one.
• "Does it help create an environment that supports me in my goals?"  Wait...what?  My first thought upon reading this one was that it seemed like one of those pretty empty "motivational seminar", pep talk lines.  But now that I think about it, this is worth keeping in mind.  The thing is, you have to HAVE goals first, namely goals in addition to "getting rid of this clutter".
• "If I flipped a coin right now, and heads was KEEP and tails was DONATE, which would I secretly be rooting for as the coin is landing?" Well I would think any pack rat knows the answer to this.  Yes, we'd secretly be wanting to see it land as a keeper.  How effective is leaving decisions like this to a coin flip, instead of your own motivation?  I'm not sure.
• "Does it make me feel positive, or negative?"  I really hate the use of the terms "positive" and "negative" like this.  Yes, some of you may be saying "Hey Bill, that's negative!"  Frankly, I've always prided myself in being a humorously cynical type.  And I think the words "positive" and "negative" are too vague to have much meaning these days.  I would however say that if there's some item that makes you slouch, sigh, and roll your eyes every time you pass by it, maybe getting rid of it will do you better in the long run.
• "Does it remind me of my past, or my future?"  How, exactly, can something "remind you of your future"?  That makes no sense.  I've been blogging about my stuff for a couple of years now, and I really can't recall anytime I've found an object and said "Oh, this reminds me of that party I went to in the year 2043!"  I guess they mean "Am I keeping this thing because I'm dwelling in the past, or because it's part of a future goal of mine?"  But again, there are both good and bad reasons that could justify holding on to something for 'past' or 'future' reasons.  As this same article mentions, using the excuse of "Well I may get around to this someday in the future" is likely to be a bad excuse for keeping clutter.  That's not the same as keeping something that's part of a future goal you're actively working on.  Likewise, there's a difference between counter-productively dwelling in the past and having an object that gives you deeply fond memories of a past event.
• "If I were hit by a proverbial bus, would my family truly value this item, or even know what it is and why I kept it?"  Maybe not, but that could apply to just about anything from a box of 400 twist-ties (which is indeed clutter) and my collection of music that they hate (which is NOT clutter).
• "What would my best friend say if she were standing here considering this?" and "What would a professional organizer say if one were sitting here with me now?"  These two questions assume that they understand hoarding, at least to some extent.  Would they have anything HELPFUL to say?  That's another question.
• "Does someone else need this more than I do?"  Maybe, but who cares?  I generally don't.  If you can give away certain clutter items to a friend and have it be a win-win situation, great.  But I'm not a philanthropist.

Now, for the questions I LIKED.  Here are two particularly good questions to ask yourself when you're moving and need to decide what's coming with you, especially if it's big:

• "Is this valuable enough to me to pay someone by-the-pound to move it to another place?"
• "What would it cost, in time and money, to acquire this again?"

A thought occurred to me as I read this.  It's probably not all that hard to find a free piano.  That's because people buy one, get stuck with them, and just want it out of their house.  Sure, you're probably not going to find a beautiful grand Steinway for free.  But I'm sure there a lot of schools out there who don't have one and could benefit, even if it needs a heavy tuning job.

Here were some questions that I think apply best before you BUY something:

• "Does anyone I know have one of these I can easily borrow?"
• "Do I already have something else that serves the same purpose?"
• "What is a scenario in which I can picture myself using this, and how likely is that to happen?"

Then there were other questions which could apply for both buying and especially keeping something:

• "How much money could I get for selling this instead of keeping it?"  The only problem with this is that if the answer is "not much, if anything", there may be other reasons why keeping it could be more of a burden than it's worth.
• "When is the last time I can remember using it?"  If it's been over 10 years, you may just have a problem!
• "How often do I use it? Weekly, monthly, yearly... never?"  See above.
• "Is there a use for this that doesn't involve the phrase, "Someday when I have time?""  I think this is my favorite.
• "Is there an alternative way to capture the essence and value of this item instead, maybe in a digital format such as a document or photograph?"  Another good one, which I've used myself.
• "Will I feel good about keeping this item the next time I run across it?"  This makes a little more sense than the positive/negative thing.