The packrat is more like us or we are more like the packrat. You can take your choice. In the NYTimes Science Times there is a story by Elizabeth Svoboda about how researchers can go way back in history to chronicle the savings of little big eared rodents who make huge nests by picking up things and gluing them into their homes with their own urine. Not a particularly home sweet home, but there are humans among us who resemble them in an eerie way.
This brings me up to the problem I have had by choosing to throw away, discard or give away (have never sold any of my preciously collected trash) simply because in each move I have lost the room to keep what I really think of as treasure. Carol has the opposite opinion of my conservative notion and says: If in doubt, throw it out. I would rather keep it for who knows, it might come in handy someday. I have picked up aquariums that were placed at the curb for pick up by garbage trucks for I saw them not as holding fish but being converted into cages for hamsters and gerbils that, at one time, I raised in large numbers in my basement – when I had a basement. People rush to follow the advice of Carol and throw away what seems to them to be outdated – such as a perfectly good lamp – but which could be rewired easily, cheaply, put a new hat on it and it will continue to serve for years.
But there is not enough room for the old – so it gets thrown away. I am now thinking of that upside down Jenny stamp that someone picked from among the many old stamps that were never used but accumulated and finally ended up on a mailed in vote in our last election. One never knows, does one? Just think of all the essays I have written over the years and have stacks of hardcopy that I am reluctant to part with although all of my stuff is saved on disks. But I think of all my 33 1/3rd classical record collection that had to go for, although with my ears the way they are, they were too scratched to save and the new formats were available at a cost. In one sense they would have made terrific targets for BB gun practice or just sailed aloft to see how far they could go before crashing and scattering bits of black plastic around. I never had too many of the vinyl variety. But the march of collectables goes on with 8 track tapes, regular tapes, miniature tapes and then large disks down to the tiny ones now available. What to do about them. Let us not even talk about books. I once had a fetish about book collecting; alas, most are now gone.
My packrat tendencies are normally innocuous and solved by periodic clean outs and throw away. But there is gold in there, I am sure. What is sad are the people who live among their treasures until fire and smoke drive them out and all is lost in a moment. I guess the world is divided between the keep and throw aways.