In the summer of 1975 I got a job in a factory that made cardboard Halloween skeletons. My job was to rivet the legs and arms onto the skeletal torso. As the parts came down a conveyor belt, I would grab them furtively and rivet. Then an arm and then a leg and then an […]
Entries Tagged as 'saving stuff'
The seamy underbelly of Halloween decor
October 12th, 2013 · No Comments · Consumer Issues, Decoration Industry, Disposability, Excess of Possessions, Manufacturing
Tags:cheaply made goods·decorations·environmental toxins·Halloween·Halloween skeletons·holiday decorations·non-recyclables·party products·polystyrene·saving stuff·seasonal decorations·Styrofoam·too much stuff·toxic waste
Grandma: not so crazy after all
May 29th, 2013 · No Comments · Excess of Possessions, Hoarding, Re-using, The Packrat Mind
In the Depression years, our grandparents saw need all around them, and probably found constant satisfaction in having saved just the right thing. In the last few years of my grandmother’s life, we sent for the items she pined for in the storage unit in New Mexico so that she could at last be reunited […]
Tags:ancestors·inheriting junk·packrat mentality·re-using·reusing·saving stuff
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
Packrat motives
December 22nd, 2012 · 6 Comments · Excess of Possessions, Multiple use, The Packrat Mind
Here’s a perfect example of the kind of thing I save. I mean look at this! It snaps apart and back together. It came on a carrot peeler, holding the merchandise tag onto the product. Does it not look like the most useful thing in the world? It could easily be made into a little […]
Tags:animal testing labs·drugs·hoarding·mice·packrat mentality·packratting·saving stuff
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 […]