I believe I've mentioned my fascination with Hoarders here numerous times. There are times I don't enjoy watching it - like, while I'm eating - but I always return to it at some point, often while I'm engaged in some industrious domestic task, like folding laundry or thinking about folding laundry.
I'm not sure exactly why I can't look away. I suppose that, like watching a horror film, the attraction is that it's not happening to me. I mean, I know I'd never BE that prom queen getting killed with a blowtorch BECAUSE I'M NOT BLOND. That's just science. And because I don't have multiple cats or a severe, debilitating psychological disorder that prevents me from throwing things out, I could never actually be a hoarder. OR COULD I?
For Christmas this year, Katr bought me a new wallet. If you've been reading my blog for six years, you may recall the story of how I snatched my current wallet from some babe at Winners - my current wallet was hard-won and I have grown to love it, even as the zipper threatens to give way and the material is shredding ever so slightly around the coin purse area. And part of what I love about my wallet is that I can fit a lot of things into it.
A lot. Of things.
As a side note, I come by my large wallet naturally - my mother also harbored a wallet so heavy it could kill a man throughout my childhood and young adulthood. I don't know if she still does, because I haven't sneaked into her purse lately. Not that I ever did that as a kid, really - because even if her wallet was filled with the entire Library of Congress, my mom would still always know EXACTLY WHAT WAS IN IT.
Katr and her chic card holder have often mocked my George Costanza wallet - particularly when I'm trying to locate a rarely used club card amid my several extremely important 7-11 Slurpee receipts from 2006. At first, she was patient with my frequent "Fuckity fuck fuck!" outbursts with the zipper split under the weight of too many subway tokens for a city we no longer live in - but clearly, this Christmas, she decided enough was enough. She bought me this slim beauty:
Note: This is a photo from the website, not the actual wallet I own. I'm on the rag and too full of Cadbury eggs to get up, walk to the bedroom, take a photo of the actual wallet, come back in here, get the card thingy out of my camera and into my computer and paw through my endless photos of yarn and the dog to get a real photo.
I love this new wallet and was just waiting for the right time to make the transfer from my old faithful to this pert princess. I knew I'd have to eliminate some of the bulk - the Princess would not tolerate $25 in loonies or a wad of soy-sauce stained Canadian Tire dollars - but I felt ready to make the transition. So last week, I sat down at the dining room table to make it happen.
I took all of my cards out of my old wallet and went to put them into my new wallet. There were not enough card slots.
"Okay," I thought, reasoning with myself, "your old wallet didn't technically have enough card slots either. You keep your cards in a wad in a zippered area clearly meant for a mini address book. You don't need all of those cards. Just lose a card or two."
I couldn't.
So instead, I decided to go through and discard some of the loyalty cards for places I never really go, like Carlton Cards and Jamba Juice. But then I thought "What if I go to Monterey, California again some day and I hit the Jamba Juice and I DON'T HAVE MY CARD??" and I couldn't get rid of those either.
And then the panic hit. There was too much stuff in my wallet, sure, but it was ALL REALLY IMPORTANT!
"Holy shit!" I thought, as my blood pressure rose and I looked around for some Baileys, "This must be what hoarders feel like when someone tried to get them to get rid of that perfectly good rotting pumpkin on their living room floor!"
I won't lie to you - when I watch Hoarders and the people flip out half way through the clean up, I always think "Get it together, you nim-nong!" NEVER AGAIN.
Now that I've had a tiny taste of what they must be going through, I have nothing but respect and sympathy for those poor fuckers. And the next time I watch the show, I will go through the fire with them...as I finally clean out my wallet.
