In Support of Pack Rats

For as long as I’ve known him, my husband, Bill, has been a pack rat–and proud of it. Perhaps it’s because when he went away to college, his mother had a yard sale and sold off all of his childhood possessions, without him knowing. He arrived home on break one year, looking to take a walk down memory lane with his toy soldiers and Matchbox cars, only to discover that they were long gone.

Since then Bill has had a hard time getting rid of anything, which explains why in every house we’re every lived in, we’ve never actually parked our cars in the garage. Why? Because our garages have always been full of Bill’s stuff.

Besides wanting to avoid getting rid of something potentially sentimental, Bill subscribes to the theory that as soon as you throw something away, you’re going to need it. For many years I fought Bill on this notion, especially when I got on a clutter-busting kick, and starting tossing and purging things around the house so everything would become neat and tidy.

One of the first times I realized that Bill was right in his pack-rat ways was when it hit me in my wallet. I’d lost some weight, and decided to get rid of my old clothes in my old size. I’d always heard that if you keep “fat” clothes around, you have no incentive to become skinny. Then I had surgery and had to go on medication, which caused me to gain back all of my weight. So I got rid of my skinny clothes and bought new fat clothes. Then I switched doctors and she switched my medication, and suddenly I was skinny again. This time around I did buy new skinny clothes but I did not get rid of all of my fat clothes. I’ve kept a couple of pairs of pants and few tops so that if my weight should fluctuate in the coming years, I won’t have to go shopping all over again.

These days, I don’t get on Bill’s case about the fact that he’s got pants in four different sizes. In fact, because we moved ourselves to this new house–and burned a ton of calories in the process–Bill lost weight and went down a pant size. And all he had to do to find something to wear was fish out his box of clothes in that size that he’d been saving all these years.

The “I shouldn’t have thrown that away” message came back loud and clear this past week. It’s when I decided that we need to set up a new composting bin in our new backyard. (We were never allowed to have one in our old neighborhood–association rules and all.) And I started searching around for how much it would cost to purchase one.

“You know, we used to have a composting bin,” Bill said to me.

“What are you talking about?” I replied.

“Remember that old black ugly bin that our old neighbors gave to us when they moved out? The one you used to store your gardening tools in? That was a composting bin.”

“No, it wasn’t.” I was starting to get a little defensive.

“Yes, it was. And you beat me down so much about decluttering the yard that I finally gave in and threw it out before we moved.”

OMG, Bill was right. I do remember our neighbor saying something about that being a composting bin and Bill saying something about how if we ever moved to another house where we could compost, it would be great to have. I feel like such an idiot for getting rid of that.

Anyone know where I can get a composting bin cheap? I promise not to throw this one away.