THE INTERNATIONAL OCD Foundation lists eight signs of compulsive hoarding, beginning with “difficulty getting rid of items” and ending with “refusing to let people into the home to make repairs.”
Where do I fall on this spectrum? Thankfully, I’m not the furthest gone, as a few weeks ago I permitted a plumber to fix a leaky basement pipe. (Bonus points: he didn’t have to crawl over anything to reach it.)
However, the Camel Saddle Incident, as it has come to be known, did raise a red flag. The item in question was a for-real dromedary accessory, acquired by my ex-wife at an auction. The two of us enjoyed attending auctions on weekends. As we drove home with it in the back seat, we realized how for-real it was: It had done hard labor on a for-real camel. Perhaps a caravan of them, judging from the cloying stench that filled our vehicle.
Anyone other than me would have thrown it away. But instead, I put it in our garage, where it moldered, untouched, for the better part of the 1990s. I am aware that this incident alone qualifies me as, if not a true hoarder, an old-school pack rat. That’s not news. I long ago accepted the fact that I hang onto things for far too long: clothing, books, all manner of keepsakes, my son’s toys, even my marriage, which I let linger for years past its sell-by date.
I don’t share my living room with stacks of empty margarine tubs or leaf bags full of unopened junk mail, but I nevertheless own plenty of things that I don’t have any reason for keeping. Because most of it isn’t kept for a reason. It’s kept for a feeling.
For instance, I still have my son’s first Halloween costume, the one he wore at age 13 months. We dressed him as a dog. At the time, I still saw him as an infant. But that evening he clutched my hand and toddled over to our across-the- street neighbors, a sweet elderly couple who took an interest in him. They gave him a Hershey’s bar and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and told him, directly, how cute he looked. That was the first time, of many to come, that I realized just how quickly he was growing.
That was almost two decades ago. My son is a man. The kindly neighbors are both long gone. But the puppy costume remains, neatly folded in the bottom drawer of my bedroom dresser, infused with nostalgia and the vague scent of fabric softener.
My humble household brims with many such objects, including rooster-and-hen salt and pepper shakers that my dad always liked for some reason; many old garments that I’m too fat to wear but that remind me of a time when I wasn’t, and my son’s toys … let’s say more than a few, OK? … from Nerf guns (so many Nerf guns) to Legos. All are relics of a time when there were more possibilities for me, more loved ones around me, and so many more hours and days and years yet to come.
Of course, none of it means anything to anyone but me. Why would it? If you didn’t experience the moments that made them special, these artifacts are nothing but clutter. If you want to know the hard truth, watch when the home of a deceased person, filled with curios, gets cleaned out in an afternoon by a flipper who puts a dumpster on the front lawn.
The irony is that when I finally pass away, my son will likely do the same thing with my stuff. It will mean nothing to him, which is fine. Perhaps I should just buck up and save him the trouble. Maybe I should have a garage sale. Or a bonfire. Or both.
But back to the malodorous saddle. It had a story almost as potent as its smell. It was a memento from the second-to-last encounter my ex-wife and I had with “our auction friend,” an affable guy we often ran into at sales. He gave her the saddle as a joke. Not long afterward, we saw him at another sale. He was happily bidding away when he dropped dead from a massive heart attack.
I didn’t know him all that well, but I went to his viewing so I could tell his widow that he died quickly and painlessly while doing what he loved. I was proud of myself for that. That was part of the reason I kept the saddle, because it reminded me of one of the handful of times in my life that I did the absolute right thing.
I know I’m capable of parting with a sentimental object if there’s a good enough reason. The proof?
I found the intestinal fortitude to discard the saddle. I would like to say I did it because I realized one doesn’t need an oddball memento to remember a good experience. Or because it hit me that happy stories live on in our thoughts and our hearts, and that things are, at the end of the day, just things.
But here’s the real good enough reason: I couldn’t stand the smell anymore. Had it not been for that, I know the damn thing would still be here, telling its story over and over, one more memory among so many others.
