In our neighborhood (and perhaps in the country at large), a custom has developed whereby when you no longer want an item, you simply put it out on your parking strip and it’s gone within a few hours. You don’t even need to put up a “free” sign, it’s understood that it’s up for grabs. […]
Entries Tagged as 'Packratting'
From whence the drive to collect?
March 14th, 2013 · No Comments · Collecting, Excess of Possessions, Hoarding, Packratting, Philosophy, The Packrat Mind
I admit i have a bit of a “thing” about collecting. There’s a-whole-nother category that lies somewhere between packratness and hoarderliness, and I’m in it. The people in this category are called “collectors” instead of packrats or hoarders because they collect things in a systematic, purposeful and orderly way, display their collections in a proud […]
Tags:collecting·hoarding·packrat mentality·saving stuff·too much stuff
Pen-Pigs Anonymous
February 4th, 2013 · No Comments · Collecting, Excess of Possessions, Packratting
It’s really bad. I might have to start going to meetings. “Hello. My name is Kate and I am a pen-pig,” I would start out. (You have to introduce yourself in the correct way.) “Hi, Kate!” they would chime in unison. Then I’d tell the following little story of hope. It happened the other day […]
Inside the Mind of a Packrat
December 14th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Packratting, Re-using, The Packrat Mind
That thing you see on my finger? It’s a twisty tie, which just turned up in the Miscellaneous drawer. Why had I saved it? For its beauty. Obviously. For one thing, it’s gold. For another, unlike ordinary twisty ties, it’s wide and flat instead of narrow and twisted. As if that were not fantastic […]
What if you have the hoarder problem?
December 12th, 2012 · No Comments · Hoarding, Packratting
If, with the aid of my last post, you have diagnosed yourself as being beyond Packrat and into the realm of Hoarder, I’m afraid I have to tell you that that’s not really the problem I’m addressing in this blog. If you are in the habit of conserving dudu and other things of vile nature, […]
Tags:encouragement·hoarding
Hoarder, Packrat, what’s the difference?
December 11th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Hoarding, Packratting
Have you ever watched the TV reality show called Hoarder? I haven’t, but I don’t really need to, because I’ve seen hoardiness in person. During the Broke Era of my life, i.e. my twenties and thirties, I lived for a year in a sort of …. rind of a boarding house … where I shared […]