Get Rid of It!!

While I’m sure that hoarders have been around since the dawn of time, it seems that, thanks to “reality TV,” the whole phenomenon has been brought into the spotlight. And I am not gonna lie… I am very strangely addicted to these shows! At first I think it was like rubber necking at an accident … you know it’s bad, but you can’t stop watching, then, for me, it became something more than that. It turned into a paranoia. I have a stack of magazines on the kitchen table – am I a hoarder? I have about 10 bottles of body wash – am I a hoarder?  I found two dirty tissues in the sofa – am I a hoarder? I always thought of myself as a little careless when it comes to keeping track of stuff, or maybe a little bit lazy about putting stuff away, but I never thought of it as potentially being the start of a much bigger problem.

The thing I don’t understand is the loose definition of “hoarding.” I always thought hoarding meant you just kept a lot of stuff, but it was usable, useful stuff. Of course most of it you don’t need, but you know you MIGHT need it someday! The thing I don’t get is that there seems to be a VERY fine line between hoarding and amassing a disgusting trash dump inside your house. I never considered it hoarding if you simply chose to throw your Snickers wrapper on the floor instead of putting it in the garbage. Even if you had 300 Snickers wrappers on the floor, I still don’t see that as hoarding. And, using the Snickers example, my son is a Hoarder, I suppose! But those things happen, poor dear, with the garbage can in his room more than two feet from his bed. I should be getting that Bad Parent of the Decade Award anytime now, right?

What seems to get most hoarders, and probably most of us in general, is that whole “I am going to really, really, really need that some day. True. You might need that oversized souvenir drink glass from Medieval Times. You might even need that Lance Bass bobblehead. But I doubt you will ever need that googly-eyed refrigerator magnet that spends more time on the kitchen floor than on the fridge door. What do you do? GET RID OF IT! Alarms won’t sound if you put it in the trash, and the skies won’t rain down on you!  Don’t wind up on TV. Well, if you wind up on TV, make it for something worthwhile, like being the long-lost Kardashian sister or the country’s newest lottery winner! It’s all about perception, and dead animals and rotting eggplant won’t do a lot for you social life.

To sum it up, keep it clean, girls!!! I mean, if George Clooney stops by unexpectedly, you want to be prepared… well, that’s MY motivation anyway! J

Enjoy your day!