Obviously, complaining about clutter doesn't make it go away. As much I like pointing out the oddities of things here on this blog, I am honestly trying to get rid of stuff. One of the problems is that I have a few huge boxes of stuff in my hallway that are all "eBay-able" items. It's a matter of not only making auctions or Craigslist posts for the items, but getting them to sell. It's a slow process. If all else fails, then as a last resort I know I can give things to the local thrift store in exchange for a tax write-off. But again, I'd rather do that only as a last resort. It's not just about the money, but the content feeling I get knowing that some odd item I own is going into the hands of somebody who really wants it, instead of just sitting among the shelves at the thrift store.
So wanting to at least get SOMETHING done today, I picked up a large handled shopping back that I'd tossed next to my kitchen wastebasket, and tried to see if I could fill it with stuff to throw away. Here are some things I found:
- DVD and CD slip covers. I'm not talking about the cases or inlay cards, but the cardboard covers that slip over some DVDs and CDs (especially "special editions"), which must be slipped off first before opening the case. What is there purpose? Probably to make it look better in the stores. So why do I keep them? I guess it's that idea of "Well I paid $40 for this DVD set, and I'd hate to throw part of that away, thus making it an incomplete version of what I bought." But if they prevent the item from fitting in a rack, and have to be dealt with every time you want to use the damn thing, then why keep them? Even if I decide to sell these off someday, I don't kid myself into thinking the slip cover is going to make it worth that much more.
However, I didn't blindly just throw ALL of them away. I did, in fact, find an autographed cover to a set of Eartha Kitt CDs. Although I have other autographs and a photograph from the time I met her in person, I had forgotten that she autographed this one too. There is absolutely nothingjunkish about an autograph from a deceased celebrity. Yes, I will admit that some junk can be valuable. Unfortunately it only seems to happen to 1% of it.
- Peacock feathers. A friend of mine gave these 5 enormous peacock feathers. And they stood hanging out from the CD racks in the corner of my living room. Then they made their way to hanging out from some plastic bin in my living room. They're looking quite stringy, and just don't go with anything. So I'm just going to let these things expire gracefully by getting them out of site and into the trash. This is a bachelor pad, not NBC.
- More paper oddities. Printed driving directions from the internet, the book of Spanish instructions to my waterproof iPod boom box, 90-day warranty cards for things I've bought over 5 years ago, 2002 homecoming brochure, math doodles as always, and my change of address notice from Fleet bank (which doesn't even exist any more).
- CDs of local bands, label samplers, etc. As mentioned in a previous blog. Boy I've wound up with a ton of these. And honestly, I can't see myself listening to them. I suppose there's that thought of "Well if this band makes it big, then people will pay a lot of money to get a hold of old demos like this." Though that's highly doubtful to happen with a lot of these bands. Most of these will probably wind up at the thrift store. As I might have mentioned before, the music stores that cary used CDs typically won't take anything that doesn't have a barcode or isn't part of a known label.
Even after putting the CDs aside in that begrudging "I'll get to this later" category, I managed to fill two huge bags of trash. I figure that if I just make this a daily routine, I'll free up a good 20 cubic feet of space in a week.
