Toward the end of her life, my grandmother hoarded paper goods. Her closets and brassiere were filled with napkins and paper bags. If an oil tanker spilled in front of her house, she could have sopped up every last drop of that “black gold” with her private napkin supply.  She lived through WWII in Paris, France and knew what it was like to have nothing, so she made darned sure she had lots of “somethings” for the rest of her not-very-glam life.

I’m a Baby Boomer. The only war I ever knew as a kid was the Cold War, which I thought had something to do with a drippy nose. I grew up in a world where things were made to break and “disposal” was good. My family wasn’t wealthy, but I never went without much. “Stuff” just collected dust that had to be cleaned, so I became a minimalist (except for food). This trait became especially handy when my mom and the three of us girls moved into a single-wide trailer. We didn’t have room to accumulate much except resentment towards each other for taking up too much space.

I never considered myself a “collector.”  But I have to admit I have a preponderance of certain things around me. Maybe (gulp), I even hoard them. You be the judge.

  1. I used to collect those miniature booze bottles. They were unopened and arranged on a display shelf that my boyfriend made. I had quite a nice collection going until one Sunday afternoon before NYS law allowed alcohol sales on the Sabbath. I ran out of booze. Have you ever had a Nuclear Rainbow? Well, that afternoon, I had at least five of the liquid ambushes, all different flavors.
  2. My three-bedroom condo really has just two bedrooms and one quilting room. While this room is half the size of my former quilting space and I got rid of a lot of my fabric to make it all fit, I’m addicted to cotton batiks.
  3. I save buttons. Blame my grandmother. She gave me tins of old buttons she’d been saving. I just continued the tradition/addiction. When I sewed my own clothes, it all made perfect sense. I don’t use buttons anymore, but they just keep multiplying like 4th graders doing math problems. I just never know when I’ll need that special button. Finding it in the black hole of my button collection is another story.
  4. I’m a word nerd. I collect unusual words by subscribing to a daily email service that delivers them to my inbox. I keep only the words that are so outlandish, I’ll never use them, but they sound funny. I have 741 and counting. Here are just a few: pogonip (not a jumping/drinking game), demotic (not a Satan-worshiper’s twitch), tittle (not a 3rd nipple), and truckle (not oil company executives’ laughter at the news that the Ford F150 continues to be the best-selling truck in America).

Good Lord, I’m a hoarder, aren’t I? My grandmother is probably pulling a napkin from her bra in Heaven and wiping her tears of pride. Me? Not so much…