Apparently I'm not one to throw things away

I'm not talking about the disturbing tower of diet coke cans piling up around my desk (though that exists at the moment -- I'm revising, everyone knows that revisions are fueled by diet coke).  Instead I'm talking about other things... clothes, electronics, bottles of lotion (I'll be explaining that last one, never fear).

As it turns out, I'm someone who is apparently afraid of throwing something away that might, some distant day in the future, be useful.  Of course, because I'm also not the most organized person, I tend to not be able to find said thing and usually end up buying a new one.  This is why we have at least a dozen three-to-two prong plug converters (in our house you can never really have enough) and why I have a laptop from 1997 in my attic (complete with stacks of floppies brimming with old papers and short stories).  In the attic at my dad's house I have every paper I wrote in college, including the drafts (which, now that I think about it, probably has print outs of what's on those floppies like my old short stories - score!).  In my own attic I have clothes I bought with my first pay check as a summer associate at a law firm in 2003 (not only do those clothes not fit any more, why would I ever need them in my current profession of sitting around the house in PJs?)

Half the things I keep around are broken: all of the ethernet cables I've hoarded are missing the little clip at the end that keeps them plugged in so I'm constantly having to shove the suckers back into their ports -- but they work so why replace them?  We have three couches in our living room currently because I can't bear to throw out a comfortable, yet raggedy, old couch that still works.   In the attic I think I have every pair of shoe I've ever owned since college... even though most of them have the nails worn through on the heel but maybe I'll get them fixed one day (unlikely, we all know I'll just buy new ones).  And OMG I just realized I still have Halloween candy from two years ago (JP wouldn't let me hand it out last year) and Valentine candy hearts from when I was in law school which is over five years ago now!   Yet when I go to throw them away I think "They've stuck around this long..."

Sometimes saving things works out.  I still have my original rejection letters from when I queried my first book in 2001.  What's pretty cool is that I eventually got an offer from one of the people who initially rejected me way back when.  I'm super glad I have that stuff to look back over and remind me of my journey to where I am now.   I just found not only my first blue-tooth headset but also the charger (let me tell you how many times I almost threw away the charger but hung on to it JUST IN CASE I found the headset).  I bought both in 2006.  I don't think either works.  Sigh.

So what made me think about all of this?  The lotion bottles on my bedside table.  There are fourteen of them.  All of them (except one, the current bottle) in that stage of "almost empty but not quite and yet annoying to get lotion out so I should pick up a new one at the store to have on hand for when it runs out" stage.  There are also five canisters of Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme which I use as chapstick -- they're empty except for probably one "emergency if you scrape your nail under the rim you might just get enough" dose.  Also, two tubes of chapstick, one of them has been floating in an empty vase for probably two years.   Oh, and I think there are two more almost empty bottles of lotion in the hall closet "just in case."

Seriously, am I preparing for the apocalypse here?  An apocalypse in which I'll apparently be eating dusty candy hearts and scraping lotion from old bottles?  And yet, there is still some value to those lotion bottles -- I feel wasteful throwing them away.   Fourteen is a little much which is why I was laughing hysterically when I went to bed last night after having counted them all.  Fourteen! *shakes head*

What's funny is that this story will surprise no one in my family.  My Psych 101 prof said on the first day that everyone exhibits some form of obsessive behavior to which most people disagreed until he started asking people to recite random habits: one person could only go to sleep if the last time they saw on the clock was an even number, another person could only set their alarm to go off on a 3 or a 7, someone else always counted stairs, another flicked a light switch on then off then on again.   Apparently I hoard lotion bottles, shoes, and rejection letters just in case they'll become useful again.

When the apocalypse hits you're all invited to my house: we'll run away dressed as fancy lawyers with busted shoes, our skin won't be dry and our bellies will be full of old candy.