Stuffing It

jane: Have you ever seen the History Channel's program American Pickers? I finally tuned in after my mom told me how much she enjoys watching it. And now I do, too! These two guys, Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, travel country back roads and comb through piles of junk, hoping to uncover that gem of a collectible or antique – such as an old barn sign or rare motorcycle – an art director or interior designer might want. Shows such as American Pickers, Pawn Stars, and Hoarders are fascinating. And they bring home in a very visual way our human propensity to amass stuff.

betsey: I’ve seen Hoarders. It’s kind of like “clutter porn.” You don’t want to look, but you do want to look. It also serves the invaluable “Thank heaven my dear ones and I are not like that!” function (although on bad days some of those dear ones skate perilously close, and you know who you are, young lady). And I admire people who can discover gems in slag heaps of stuff, so I’ll have to check out the “pickers” show. Although, being married to a man who has engaged in Dumpster diving from time to time, I’m not sure I’d let him watch . . .

jane: Dumpster diving! Yes! We had close friends from college who after graduation, when money was tight, dove for expired food items. One night we ate dinner at their house; they served a delicious lasagna, but as we noshed, they described how they'd gotten the mozzarella from the dumpster behind our local Dominicks. I'll never forget that dinner.

But speaking of stuff, right now I'm up to my eyeballs in it. Rich and I are clearing out his parents' large home, and each closet, drawer, or shelf reveals another collection of a lifetime. We're picking through sentimental items, valuable items, and then – well, items you'd simplify classify as clutter, such as countless plastic bags and Glad containers.

betsey: I’ve thought about this, because on one level, the visual, I truly despise clutter and spend inordinate amounts of time picking up, organizing, consolidating, and ensuring no pile has more than three items in it. I’m not really a saver. But there are quirky, personal things I’m attached to. The stuffed frog Fritz won for me at a theme park when we were dating. My yellow metal circa-1950 canisters that remind me of my mom’s kitchen stuff when I was very young. Our room card from when we stayed at Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago for my birthday a while back – I have it stuck in my dresser mirror.

jane: My treasures tend to be children's books and family photos. Oh, and dishes. I have a weakness for them. I have two sets of china (one, our wedding china, and one I inherited from my Norwegian grandma), and two sets of everyday dishes (one I also inherited – the Franciscan Rose pattern, which was very popular in the ’40s and’50s. My aunt, my grandmothers, and my mom all owned it, and I have the accumulated leftovers of those collections.

betsey: I adore children’s books. I’ve often said that if I were to seriously collect anything, it would be classic hardcover kids’ books. Johnny Tremain. Caddie Woodlawn. Stuart Little. The first Little Golden Books. The entire Betsy-Tacy series. And if anyone has an extra copy of The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands. Then there are those things that I don’t really enjoy anymore, like vinyl albums I can’t play, but they were such a part of my feckless youth that I can’t bear to callously toss them away. So the Moody Blues sojourn permanently in our basement.

jane: That's how I feel about my collection of Joni Mitchell albums. But this purging process we're in the thick of reminds me how easy it is to store up “treasures” – and proves the adage that one man's treasure is another man's junk.

betsey: It is depressing to ponder the fate of one’s things, like when you go into an antiques shop and see framed photos of some unknown family, people who were important to someone once. Or the endless collections of tchotchkes and old issues of Life that virtually no one wants. Plus, from a sustainability point of view, a lot of it winds up piling up in landfills. I haven’t seen Toy Story 3, but I guess it’s partly about what happens to beloved treasures that you outgrow.

jane: Have you ever seen that classic George Carlin comedy routine called "Stuff"?  Even though Carlin's language is salty, his observational humor is spot on. At one point he says, “That's the whole meaning of life . . . trying to find a place for your stuff. . . . That's what a house is, isn't it, it's a pile of stuff with a cover on it.”

As funny as that is, stuff isn't the whole meaning of life. Before God, stuff becomes meaningless. Moth and rust really do corrupt; I'm seeing that firsthand. And, being reminded daily that my turn will come. One day the stuff I possess, for whatever reason, will end up in banker boxes, waiting to be pitched or donated. The title of a John Ortberg book pretty well sums it up: When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box.