These "Hoarder" shows try hard but hey, when you live with the hoarder prototype, they really don't pass muster. Just because you save every newspaper you ever read or dry cleaning receipt--that's amateur hour in my book.
My mom--let's call her Miss Judge-mental--bought THEN saved everything. There is a big difference. Old newspapers are worth next to nothing. Seven closets of shoes at about $300 a pop. Now we're talking. Got a few hundred TV Guides? Kindling. Now, three hundred pieces of St. John Knit is some good coin.
Miss Judge-mental did not keep her hoarding to the closest. The kitchen was a particular point of pride. Ever had chipped beef? From a jar? If not, she had seven jars around at all times. Candied ginger, anchovies, corn meal and Mandarin oranges were also in high supply. At least 20 boxes of sugar free banana Jello and low sodium chicken broth, too. What all those things make combined sounds like a Sandra Lee "Semi Homemade" recipe nightmare. From every meal a scrap was saved--nothing went to waste. Three peas, a lone bread roll, or half a canned peach were put in lunch-sized baggies and stuffed into a Sub Zero freezer that screamed "HELP ME" every time the door was opened.
Paper weights in crystal and china--boxes full. Pillows with sayings on them like "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most" covered every couch, chair and bed. Silver in every form--like four sets of place settings with 24 pieces each. Silver goblets, pill boxes, gravy ladles, grape scissors, grapefruit spoons and ash trays ( no one smoked) filled cupboards. Three complete sets of china, dressers of antique table linens and hundreds of Christmas cookie cut out shapes.
The attic was so interesting. Fifty years of tax returns, a pair of brown men's shoes that fit no one, Nixon buttons, boxes of my baby clothes (I'm 46), scraps of fabric and a flight manifest signed by Charles Lindbergh. Boxes of cut crystal, Christmas decorations, and wedding albums.
My theory on this 4,000 square foot junk fest we called home harkens back to the Great Depression and a fried egg sandwich. As a young child, saddened by a man begging for food on a street corner, Miss Judge-mental went home and fried in costly butter the only black market egg in the family fridge, carefully wrapped it in two priceless pieces of bread and went back to find the man--to no avail. Returning home, her furious mother forced her to eat that cold egg sandwich as a lesson she never forgot.
I mean really, it should have gone in the freezer.
No comments:
Post a Comment