turtle boxwood

Things We Collect

My sister lives alone. Well, she was all alone up until a month ago. Then some mother cat left her a litter of three kittens. Two have rusty brown long hair and the other has black and grey tiger stripes. This is my sister’s third, no likely thirty-third, go around of rescuing kittens. There is something about small fuzzy things that go way past memes for her. She must play with them. She must pet them. She must have them purring next to her. She is smart though. She has automatic electronic litter boxes. That helps a lot. They sense when a cat has been in the box. Then the box rakes the kitty litter and scoops it into a plastic bag. If you remember to change out the bag every other day the system works. And then there are the multi-day feeding stations and automatic water dish re-fillers for going away for a day or two. But you still have to come home to the shredded curtains, revenge poop in the corners or on the TV and the obligatory hairball pukes on your antique white bedspread.

Me? I am happy with cat memes, cat calendars, and cat videos. Fewer allergies. No hair to vacuum. I guess you can say I like the idea of cats, I just don’t like their maintenance. I don’t even have any of my collections anymore. Was it just a 60s thing? Everyone collected something. It made it easier for buying gifts for every occasion. One of my sisters collected elephants. I collected turtles. I know people who collected cookie jars, salt and pepper shakers, teapots, alligators, and china dolls. I think it broke down by gender then because boys usually collected things like shot glasses, license plates, stamps, coins, snake skins, stolen street signs, models of cars and aircraft carriers (I think it was the glue that they really liked), and matchbook covers.

These days, I call anything like that not so much collectables, but more just dustables. Really, do you want to end up a caretaker of a weird museum? If you want to see the world in your retirement you are going to have to shake free of your stuff. Or you will be so busy tending to your menageries you won’t have the freedom to move around your own house.

Of course you could get out the glue gun and make art out of these collections. Make a chandelier out of the teapots. Use the seashells to make a lamp. Take all your team T-shirts and turn them into a quilt for the den. In other words re-purpose all those things that you love (but never really look at). And if you think your collections have value, have them appraised, liquidate them and take the Bucket List trip of a lifetime. Time’s awastin’.

And here is a big FYI: What we treasure is mostly meaningless to our heirs. If you don’t believe me, take a photo of each item and then ask each child and grandchild which ones they want. If you are lucky, one-half of the stuff will be gone. But most likely you will be stuck sitting in the middle of all those lunch boxes, worldwide beach-sand samples or faded coasters. Wouldn’t you rather be punting the Thames?

Sally Franz and her third husband live on the Olympic Peninsula. She has two daughters, a stepson, and three grandchildren. Sally is the author of several humor books including Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey and The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Menopause. She hosts a local radio humor segment, “Baby Boomer Humor with Sassy Sally”.

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