You know you have too much stuff when…
(Photo: kthread)
I desperately wanted a cup of milk. No, I needed it.
The milk I already had on hand. All I was missing was the cup to pour it into.
Going through my friend’s cupboard, I only found cheap-looking wine glasses. Fair enough, a cup is a cup.
I don’t need to describe how I poured the milk into the glass, or how delicious and refreshing the milk was. You can use your imagination.
What you probably didn’t expect, though, was my friend’s reaction to this. To put it simply: she freaked out.
“Could you PLEASE not use those wine glasses?! They’re VERY special to me. They’re from my mom’s wedding. Oh god, let me wash it, no, give me the glass.”
I thought she was joking at first, but it turned out she wasn’t.
There’s something weird to me about keeping functional items where they belong and then freaking out if anyone ever touches them. Just get rid of the wine glasses and save yourself the stress of worrying about them.
December 4th, 2009 at 5:46 am
When I was growing up, we had a living room in our house, complete with two sofas and a coffee table. However, my parents not only didn’t allow anyone to sit on the sofas, they didn’t allow anyone to enter the room at all. I always questioned them about these odd rules and they would just say, “it’s such a nice room, we don’t want anyone to mess it up.” They would actually check the carpet to see if we walked on it when they weren’t home!
December 4th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Oh man, I can’t stand sentimentality for the sake of sentimentality. If you want to own wine glasses, get some wine glasses that serve a function, but why hold on to them if they only exist to exist?
I’ve written a few posts about this very subject because it seems to be one part of my personal philosophy that many people just can’t seem to wrap their minds around. The idea of ‘keepsakes’ have been so ingrained into humanity through tradition and modern media (that want to convince you that what they are telling you to buy is a keepsake) that we accumulate until we eventually drown in our own pile of knick-knacks and greeting cards.
Great example. This illustrates the point perfectly!
December 4th, 2009 at 6:37 am
It’s commodity fetishism as Marx would say.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:05 am
I, too, have always found the plastic-on-the-furniture/”these towels are for company” syndrome to be odd…even a little sad. But I think that is significantly different than attaching memory/sentiment to an object. I don’t know the history between this girl and her mom, but I can’t judge a person for hanging onto a piece of physical evidence that validates memories. The more distant a memory becomes, the fuzzier it gets, and the more likely one is to doubt its reality. Especially in the absence of others who share in their significant memories, physical reminders can help a person feel…sane.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
You really hit the head with this post. I’ve known many people with this exact complex.
February 27th, 2010 at 1:43 am
A perfect example:
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2008/05/07/they-match-the-plastic-slipcover-on-the-futon/