gearbasher Posted February 3, 2023 Share Posted February 3, 2023 I should be moving shortly (a whopping two miles). I'm in contract for another home and unless something goes haywire, I'll be out by the end of the month. This isn't my choice. I co-owned a two family home with my brother and he forced me to sell. Anyhow, back to the topic. I have/had so much stuff I don't want or need. I've been leaving things out in my driveway with a "For Free" sign and basically it's all been going. I gave away furniture, dishes, glasses, pots, pans, vases, lamps, etc. You name a household item and I probably gave one (or two) away. I just hate throwing things away that can still be used. What made me write this is: When I was caring for my mom, she would use straws to drink. I just found two new packages of straws. Not worth putting out for free. But it just irks me to throw away something useful no matter how inexpensive it is. Do I need therapy? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted February 3, 2023 Share Posted February 3, 2023 Nope. You're fine. I did a free table several times last summer but since then I have bought many MANY junk lots at auctions. I make my money back (and sometimes a profit) from the shiny stuff I might find at the bottom of the boxes. The rest goes into a room over the garage. I plan to have a big yard sale next summer but I doubt many things will be priced more than $1.00. Whatever doesn't sell will go on a free table. And put the straws out too. If nobody takes them THEN you can toss them with a clear mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitefang Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 Since my mini stroke in '14 for some reason I started getting all kinds of crap in the mail. Address labels, Christmas cards( Not from family, but unused cards from various charities trying to guilt me into sending a donation) . I've got enough ballpoint pens to supply my city's entire school system. Also dream catchers, rosaries, and neck chains with either religious or other type pendants on them. And key chains. The only thing I get that I do throw out are the wall calendars. I usually get close to two dozen a year, and toss out "last year's" calendars. Then it starts all over again. I haven't bought Christmas cards in seven years. I finally used up all I had this Christmas, but I'm sure my collection will build up sufficiently by next Christmas. Same with birthday cards. And yes, it's because I too, can't abide throwing away anything that's useful. and I keep trying to give some things to people who might be able to use them too. When my wife died (five years ago this coming December) My daughters helped me unload much of her stuff( she was their step Mother) which consisted of.... One five drawer chest of drawers with each drawer stuffed full of various clothing, one small cabinet that held 15 pairs of jeans. Another six drawer chest of drawers that held her pajamas and sweats, most of the space in three closets of dresses, blouses, coats and jackets. Whew! My younger daughter's boyfriend has a daughter from his previous marriage that works at a Salvation Army store. She was mighty grateful for the donations. I offered my wife's sisters to come over and take whatever clothing they liked(as they all were the same size) but they said they each had their closets and chest of drawers so full they really didn't have room for anything else. But I still have most of her jewelry which isn't going anywhere. Whitefang 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROWB8 Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 21 hours ago, gearbasher said: Do I need therapy? Me thinks no one is normal these days unless one is functionaly disfunctional. 🙃 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrdinaryNimda Posted February 4, 2023 Share Posted February 4, 2023 21 hours ago, gearbasher said: I should be moving shortly (a whopping two miles). I'm in contract for another home and unless something goes haywire, I'll be out by the end of the month. This isn't my choice. I co-owned a two family home with my brother and he forced me to sell. Anyhow, back to the topic. I have/had so much stuff I don't want or need. I've been leaving things out in my driveway with a "For Free" sign and basically it's all been going. I gave away furniture, dishes, glasses, pots, pans, vases, lamps, etc. You name a household item and I probably gave one (or two) away. I just hate throwing things away that can still be used. What made me write this is: When I was caring for my mom, she would use straws to drink. I just found two new packages of straws. Not worth putting out for free. But it just irks me to throw away something useful no matter how inexpensive it is. Do I need therapy? Confession is therapy enough. 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheepdog1969 Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 The chances that any "unused" item may be "needed", regardless of how long that it has sat idle in storage, will increase exponentially the second that it is no longer in your possession. (ie: While you have it, it won't be needed, but once you let it go, a need for it will arise.) Trying to explain this to your wife, girlfriend, and/or mother will fall on deaf ears and expose you to ridicule. (a sexist would say!). PS - I've known many musicians who not only could find a use for those straws, but would cut them in half, (or thirds), when they "used" them, thus getting 2X+ the use out of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortyearspickn Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 Confession: I take parts and pieces off broken stuff before I throw it out, and save it in my garage. I'm guessing I'll be hearing the shouts and curses of my children, when I'm dead and gone, as they try to figure out what to do with all the stuff. Afraid to just throw it out without trying to figure out what it is and if it is worth keeping. Moving is a pain in the axe - and the garage is the worst room in the house. BUT - cleaning out a house after a crazy old fart of a hoarder has gone on to the big Garage Sale In The Sky - well, sort of like He1! on Earth. (and this in spite of the fact that my wife is an Oprah Acolyte and believes in throwing stuff out indiscriminately. In my closet - "If you haven't worn it in a year - it goes to the Salvation Army." So my irreplaceable USN Pea Coat went to some yahoo probably using it as a dog bed. Grrrr. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitefang Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 My wife told me her ex had the annoying habit of filling their garage with a lot of useless old crap. And gave the equally useless excuse, "Could probably use it someday." When someday never came she went to U-Haul and rented a trailer and paid a couple of neighbor kids to help her load it up and got rid of ALL the useless crap he was saving for "someday". But she wasn't amused when I told her I thought that was a good idea of what to do with all those shoes of hers one day when she was at work. Whitefang 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted February 6, 2023 Author Share Posted February 6, 2023 Well, I gathered enough thing to put out one more table's worth of free stuff. I threw the straws on it. They went. I'm amazed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitefang Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 I too, once had a large collection of straws. Mostly lifted from hospital rooms my wife was in whenever she had to go in for low hemoglobin. Now I have NO idea where they wandered off to. My daughter said she thinks it has something to do with Karma. Whitefang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 Something may be lying around in storage for countless years, and you've never had a use for it. ... UNTIL ... the day after you dispose of it. That's when you will have an occasion where you desperately need what you just got rid of, and you are forced to buy a new one. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted February 8, 2023 Author Share Posted February 8, 2023 2 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said: Something may be lying around in storage for countless years, and you've never had a use for it. ... UNTIL ... the day after you dispose of it. That's when you will have an occasion where you desperately need what you just got rid of, and you are forced to buy a new one. I'm heavy into bicycling. Since they kept upping the amount of cogs and switched from freewheels to cassettes, I probably had a dozen 5 and 6 speed freewheels just collecting dust. One day while purging, I though I would never use them again, so they went into the recycling bin. About a month later, my niece asked me if I can fix her bike. She brings it over and, guess what, it needed a 6 speed freewheel. So, I was off to a bike shop to buy one. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitefang Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 All that can happen even without throwing anything away. Note too, that whenever you can't find something in particular, and seemingly tear up your house searching for it and it's not to be found, bet the rent that it'll show up just after you return home with the replacement you just bought. Now, you have TWO of them(whatever's). But, if and when one of them breaks, try finding the other one! Whitefang 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted February 8, 2023 Author Share Posted February 8, 2023 33 minutes ago, Whitefang said: All that can happen even without throwing anything away. Note too, that whenever you can't find something in particular, and seemingly tear up your house searching for it and it's not to be found, bet the rent that it'll show up just after you return home with the replacement you just bought. Now, you have TWO of them(whatever's). But, if and when one of them breaks, try finding the other one! Whitefang This reminds me of a story. My brother and I were renovating a house we bought (this was thirty years ago). We were working on the bathroom and needed a flashlight. He asked me where it was and I told him I left it in the laundry room. Now, the laundry room wasn't finished yet. It was totally empty. He comes back and says it wasn't there. So, I went to get it and it wasn't there. He tells me that he wasn't going to waste time looking, and he runs out to buy another flashlight. After we finish working, we were walking past the laundry room and I glance in. There, right in the middle of the room, is the flashlight. It's standing, lens down and straight up. This was a four D-cell mag light. I don't know how either of us could have overlooked it. It's one of the reasons I believe in ghosts. I have a couple of other strange stories about that house. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidblast Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 3 hours ago, gearbasher said: This reminds me of a story. My brother and I were renovating a house we bought (this was thirty years ago). We were working on the bathroom and needed a flashlight. He asked me where it was and I told him I left it in the laundry room. Now, the laundry room wasn't finished yet. It was totally empty. He comes back and says it wasn't there. So, I went to get it and it wasn't there. He tells me that he wasn't going to waste time looking, and he runs out to buy another flashlight. After we finish working, we were walking past the laundry room and I glance in. There, right in the middle of the room, is the flashlight. It's standing, lens down and straight up. This was a four D-cell mag light. I don't know how either of us could have overlooked it. It's one of the reasons I believe in ghosts. I have a couple of other strange stories about that house. yes indeed... that IS creepy... I'm inclined to believe in them too. You know how some houses just have a distinct smell? with my grandmother, it was ginger snap cookies. She was famous for them and made them by the box fulls for the several organizations she belonged to for bake sales, parties, holidays... Her place always smelled like these cookies. That very same smell wafted into my room one night, when I still lived at home. Just before I was about to doze off, there it was and it was strong. It lasted for about 1 maybe 2 minutes, then as quickly as it emerged it disappeared. No other home I'd ever been in smelled like her place. Certainly not the house I grew up in, and most surely not at around 11 pm at night. Kind of freaked me out at first, but then I realized, it was probably Gram.... At least I liked to think it was back in those days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted February 8, 2023 Author Share Posted February 8, 2023 57 minutes ago, kidblast said: yes indeed... that IS creepy... I'm inclined to believe in them too. You know how some houses just have a distinct smell? with my grandmother, it was ginger snap cookies. She was famous for them and made them by the box fulls for the several organizations she belonged to for bake sales, parties, holidays... Her place always smelled like these cookies. That very same smell wafted into my room one night, when I still lived at home. Just before I was about to doze off, there it was and it was strong. It lasted for about 1 maybe 2 minutes, then as quickly as it emerged it disappeared. No other home I'd ever been in smelled like her place. Certainly not the house I grew up in, and most surely not at around 11 pm at night. Kind of freaked me out at first, but then I realized, it was probably Gram.... At least I liked to think it was back in those days. Ok. Here's another one. My friend was dating a woman and she had a child that he always called his daughter. A little girl that was maybe 5 or 6 years old. This girl, sweet as she was, was "different". Not in a bad sense. Maybe, she had a mild case of autism. I don't know. Anyhow, whenever my friend came to visit me and my brother, he would ring the bell and his daughter would look through the mail slot to see who was answering. One day, when nobody was home, he rang the bell, and she looked in and said to my friend: "I didn't know Joseph and Anthony have a grandmother." He asked her: "What do you see?" She said: "I see an old lady. " He asked her what she looked like. And she said: "She looks like a nice old lady." Meanwhile, he was able to look through the top glass of the door and, of course, no one was there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidblast Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 (edited) 15 hours ago, gearbasher said: Ok. Here's another one. My friend was dating a woman and she had a child that he always called his daughter. A little girl that was maybe 5 or 6 years old. This girl, sweet as she was, was "different". Not in a bad sense. Maybe, she had a mild case of autism. I don't know. Anyhow, whenever my friend came to visit me and my brother, he would ring the bell and his daughter would look through the mail slot to see who was answering. One day, when nobody was home, he rang the bell, and she looked in and said to my friend: "I didn't know Joseph and Anthony have a grandmother." He asked her: "What do you see?" She said: "I see an old lady. " He asked her what she looked like. And she said: "She looks like a nice old lady." Meanwhile, he was able to look through the top glass of the door and, of course, no one was there. I know these all come around Halloween, but I dig stories like this. I have another too I'll share that in a bit Edited February 9, 2023 by kidblast Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitefang Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 22 hours ago, gearbasher said: This reminds me of a story. My brother and I were renovating a house we bought (this was thirty years ago). We were working on the bathroom and needed a flashlight. He asked me where it was and I told him I left it in the laundry room. Now, the laundry room wasn't finished yet. It was totally empty. He comes back and says it wasn't there. So, I went to get it and it wasn't there. He tells me that he wasn't going to waste time looking, and he runs out to buy another flashlight. After we finish working, we were walking past the laundry room and I glance in. There, right in the middle of the room, is the flashlight. It's standing, lens down and straight up. This was a four D-cell mag light. I don't know how either of us could have overlooked it. It's one of the reasons I believe in ghosts. I have a couple of other strange stories about that house. My Grandmother used to have a phrase for things like that. When you look all over for something and often at the place you KNEW you put it last you used it, and then later finally finding it right where you looked a dozen times without finding it there earlier. She'd say, "The devil was sitting on it." More Twilight Zone----- Our grandniece (one of them) was riding in the backseat of our car when we were heading somewhere and was going on about some activity she was involved with that sounded like something she'd never bother with. So my wife asked her, "When did you do all that?" And the girl answered, "Back when I was a grown-up." We laughed at that answer. But a few days later we were watching some thing on TV about a little girl in India who was riding in a car with her parents when she eagerly called for them to stop. When her Dad stopped the car the girl jumped out and started running to a house by the road and the parents chased after her as she went into the house and looked around pointing to different parts of the house and saying she remembered there was this thing there and that thing over on the other wall, and then entered a room at the back and described what it looked like some years ago. The owners of the house said she described what their son's room looked like at the time of his death. He died seven years earlier, and the little girl was seven years old. Freaked me and my wife out. The narrator of the TV show said such occurrences were commonplace in India and all we kept thinking about was little Rheanann saying, "Back when I was a grown-up." Whitefang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortyearspickn Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 Reincarnation? Apparently fits in with the thread theme "I Hate Throwing Things Away". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitefang Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 1 hour ago, fortyearspickn said: Reincarnation? Apparently fits in with the thread theme "I Hate Throwing Things Away". Sure. And some people think recycling is some new idea. Whitefang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissouriPicker Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 You don’t need therapy….You’re human. It’s easy to have mountains of once desired/needed stuff pile-up. Then, we gradually forget we’ve even got it……My wife and I use a rule that works reasonably well for us: if we haven’t needed it in the last five years—-it’s outta here……..Of course, with musical items I tend to bend the rules. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBSinTo Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 On 2/11/2023 at 10:28 PM, MissouriPicker said: You don’t need therapy….You’re human. It’s easy to have mountains of once desired/needed stuff pile-up. Then, we gradually forget we’ve even got it……My wife and I use a rule that works reasonably well for us: if we haven’t needed it in the last five years—-it’s outta here……..Of course, with musical items I tend to bend the rules. MissouriPicker, I would never agree to such a policy, because if I did, my wife would insist on having me castrated. RBSinTo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitefang Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 If you have a wife, that means you're married. And if you're married, you're already figuratively castrated. So to speak.... Whitefang 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBSinTo Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 8 minutes ago, Whitefang said: If you have a wife, that means you're married. And if you're married, you're already figuratively castrated. So to speak.... Whitefang Whitefang, True dat. RBSinTo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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