My family believes in saving everything, wasting nothing, and accumulating mass amounts of useless scraps in the process. I never really thought about why we do it--I suppose it's a trait passed down from my grandparents who grew up in the Depression, an era characterized by economic frugality. But today in a nation whose plastic cutlery comes wrapped in plastic, packaged in cardboard, and shrinkwrapped in plastic once again, thriftiness can build into excess.
Moving my grandparents into a nursing home was quite a task. Their sizable house was filled to the brim with newspapers, calendars, boxes, condiments, napkins, bottles, and so on. Cleaning it out wasn't the hard part; all we had to do was throw everything in a dumpster. Convincing my grandparents they didn't need all this stuff was more difficult. With each box of old hotel soaps or worn-out shoes or pre-used wrapping paper my grandmother would say, "But I might need that some day." Will you? Probably not.
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When I made the move to my own apartment, I went through something eerily parallel. Pulling out boxes of old ribbons, scraps of plastic, and barely recognizable broken objects from under my bed made me realize that I was hoarding junk just like my grandparents. Just this afternoon I found three small containers of coffee creamer I'd indubitably stuffed in my pocket at 711 last week. I don't even use creamer.
Why do we hoard things when we don't necessarily need to? I suppose it's something to do with "getting your money's worth." But it's most likely just compulsive behavior, something done unconsciously, with no rational motive. It's just the way I've been taught to act, and no matter how hard I try to fight it, and call me an old lady, but at the end of the day I still manage to find myself with pockets full of bottle caps and ketchup packets.
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