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Where do you rate on the packrat scale?

post #1 of 14
1/19/10 at 12:12pm
Thread Starter 
I was just looking for something in my garage and realized I had a box that hadn’t been opened since I’ve moved many times. It contained old computer stuff from the 80’s. Anyone old enough to remember what a Bernoulli box is? dBaseII? Never mind. It would be like most of us finding a box full of cassettes. Anyway, my point is I had to laugh because I’ve tried to not be a packrat.

I once read an article about Rocky Aoki, who founded the Benihana restaurant chain. He said one day he woke up and realized he had people on his staff that were paid big money to just keep track of his ‘stuff’. He had boats and condos in Hawaii, and . . . He decided to get rid of everything he didn’t use regularly and didn’t miss it. I decided to try it.

It was hard because I kept thinking, “what if I need this?” or “I know I’m gonna have to buy one of these as soon as I throw it away”. It rarely actually happened and a simpler life has worked for me. Don’t get me wrong, I still have books on my bookshelves I haven’t read in years, and I have jars of screws and nuts and things on my workbench waiting for future repair duties, but my innate packratitis is under control for now. At least I thought it was until I found this box . . . .

What are you holding onto that you’ll never need again?
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post #2 of 14
1/19/10 at 12:15pm
I took a tip from my wife and the Fly Lady (look her up on the www). Twenty-seven fling boogie!

There was also the example of my best friend, who sold or gave away almost everything he owned, and took off for Europe with only what he could carry on the airplane. On the plus side, I scored his speakers and his car. On the minus side, I have several boxes of his stuff and his Bianchi bike, of which I may have to be custodian of for the rest of my life.

I like the speakers and the car, but I prefer my vintage Peugeot to the Bianchi.
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post #3 of 14
1/19/10 at 1:50pm
Would think I stand far down on the scale.
Since I consider myself quite capable of not collecting and storing items I suspect to get little or no use. Some small items are stored in a closet here and there, but no big or valuable items (afaik).
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post #4 of 14
1/19/10 at 2:12pm
pretty bad here, actually: clothes that I haven't worn in years, books I should have given away long ago, toys that don't work anymore... partly because I've moved around a lot (and kept original boxes etc), when instead of shedding I accumulated; partly because now that I'm more settled I keep finding a niche that can be filled with things.
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post #5 of 14
1/19/10 at 4:39pm
Packrat? Me?
No! I make darn sure the path to my headphones is clear at all times!!!
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post #6 of 14
1/19/10 at 4:47pm
I prefer to be called a "collector of things"
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post #7 of 14
1/19/10 at 6:24pm
I'm pretty young so I haven't been around to accumulate a plethora of junk. I am adamant about keeping the packaging to stuff I buy, which is someone problematic. It sure came in handy when I sold my Logitech 5.1 speakers after joining head-fi though.
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post #8 of 14
1/19/10 at 6:29pm
It's not junk, it's inventory.
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post #9 of 14
1/19/10 at 8:36pm
LOL! Inventory, I like that. I think I can probably run a hobby and game store out of my apartment for a good couple of months, at least.

I tend to be pretty bad about keeping stuff around. Like my old VHS player or my box of computer games from the 90's. Then there's the hundreds of dollars worth of unbuilt resin garage kits I have, along with the air brush, compressor, and indoor hood to work on them with. When was the last time I touched a garage kit with the intent of working on it? I think it was September. Maybe.

...and I still have to throw out the old coffee maker that I replaced something like 2 years ago. It still works, it's just the newer smaller one fits my needs better.

Doesn't compare to my sister though. She moved from Seattle back to Hawaii after my dad passed away, and she actually brought along a bunch of her text books from her time in graduate school. My mom only just recently convinced her to give away a few of them. She keeps saying that she may need them sometime, though she hasn't touched them in 4 years or something.
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post #10 of 14
1/19/10 at 8:59pm
I know that I'm going to be bad when I get older... I hold on to things like no one else. Side effect: I lose things in the chaos.
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post #11 of 14
1/19/10 at 9:03pm
I keep carefully selected junk.
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post #12 of 14
1/20/10 at 3:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by logwed View Post
...Side effect: I lose things in the chaos.
I have a strange sense of vaguely where things are in the clutter. Usually because I saw it a few months back, and not because there's much organization at all. Once in a while I actually have to spend a bunch of time looking for something, but usually I can remember things like "those old cd's are in a box in the spare bedroom closet near the shop-vac."
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post #13 of 14
1/20/10 at 4:34pm
Being a college student I don't have the space to be a packrat, but I guess I do have about 300 old pop, church, and Christmas records that I will never listen to that are just sitting under my stair well. I should really give them away.
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post #14 of 14
1/20/10 at 4:52pm
I'm a horrible pack rat. When my parents moved my sister and me to India, they packed everything we owned to be shipped there. When we decided to move back to the US, my parents didn't want to deal with all the stuff they had accumulated over the years so we gave away and sold what we didn't need/want anymore and packed all the stuff we still wanted and put it into storage. We literally came back to the US with only whatever could fit in the 8 suitcases, 4 carry-on rollers and 4 back-packs that were the entirety of baggage we were allowed. We promised ourselves that we wouldn't accumulate more stuff. Now in the 8 years we've been back, we've actually managed to accumulate more stuff than we had before. I'm definitely the worst of the lot though. My parents are constantly dragging up junk asking me why I keep it and my argument is always 'I'll have a use for it sooner or later". Later, I tend to find it, wonder why I still have it and throw it back wherever it was before.
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