May 1, 2002

Pack rat tendencies clutter up life

By GARRET LEIVA
Herald editor
       After years of self-denial, I've decided to come out of the closet - and the basement - with my little secret: I am a pack rat.
      Despite living in a throw-away society for most of my life, I am a saver; and I have the banana boxes to prove it. Strange as it sounds, purging even a single piece of paper can take years. After all, who knows when that report, "Apartheid: Oppressor of a Nation" for 12th-grade English class might come in handy.
      Being a closet pack rat, I'm not one of those eccentric misers whose life is strewn across every inch of his living room. Instead, my disposal dilemma is kept in the dark of bedroom closets and in the bowels of our basement.
      Even during childhood, I saved bric-a-brac and doodads for inexplicable reasons. Some of the unlikely objects I kept included unearthed rail road spikes, a crusty 1960 Sunday comics page and a slightly used bowling pin. Most of these items, including one ill-fated pet clam, were stuffed under the bed for safe keeping. No wonder why cleaning my bedroom consisted of bringing in a hazardous waste team from Love Canal.
      Today, little lurks under the bed except the odd sock and occasional rabid dust bunny. On my side of the bedroom closet, however, hangs a grievous example of stingy saving.
      It is known simply as "The Shirt." Bought through a mail-order catalog in 1989, the patchwork quilt-looking button down survived four years of college and now three presidencies. Over the last 13 years, it has bounced back wash after wash. The Soviet Union collapsed, Milli Vanilli won a Grammy, the dot.com industry imploded, but The Shirt barely frayed around the cuffs.
      While I treasure The Shirt, my wife would like to trash it. Each spring closet cleaning, however, I justify its existence and skip the seam-tearing trip to the rag bag. The same goes for one ripped and armpit-stained "Dead Milkmen" concert T-shirt.
      Unfortunately, my pack rat tendencies go well beyond cotton blends. Among the banana boxes in our basement are invaluable items such as keys to cars now turned into license plates and a "I Love Chapleau" pin. I don't even know where Chapleau is let alone why I would have such strong feelings for the place.
      In fleeting moments of lucid self-reflection, I wonder 'why move this futile flotsam from Adrian, Mich. to Sault Ste. Marie to Traverse City?' Why can't I jettison this junk from my life? Try as I might, the answers eluded me - even after reading an entire box of Spiderman comics while wearing my Dr. Who Fan Club button.
      Perhaps the problem lies in that I perceive all of these objects as cherished bits of childhood. Sentimental attachment might clutter up our lives, but it's often worth the storage space. Case in point, my parents keeping the ceramic coffee mug I made in third-grade for posterity sake, not for its inability to hold hot liquids.
      Of course, now that I am a parent, my pack rat instincts will undoubtedly run rampant. Every scrap of paper our child scribbles on with a 64 pack of crayons will be saved. Her first tooth, strands of hair, even tonsils in a Dixie Cup are all candidates for the safety deposit box. Just the preschool art projects alone will constitute buying a bigger house.
      There are a quantity of things and character qualities we pass along to our children between inheritance and genetics. Hopefully, Ella will end up with more than a thread-bare shirt and an overwhelming urge to put it in a banana box in the basement.
      Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com