OBSERVATIONS
ReNew Raleigh
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Mental Illness Makes Me Ill
War Is Peace?
StringCans Is Dead
Organic / Local Thanksgiving
Vegetarianism Rant
The Secrets of Mangling Metaphors in an Off-Year
The Secrets of Mangling Metaphors in an Off-Year
Those Miserable Bastards Are Ruining Organics
GOLDEN CANS
ReNew Raleigh
Organic / Local Thanksgiving
The Secrets of Mangling Metaphors in an Off-Year
Rockers Unite Over Pirate Vs. Ninja: But what do they know?
HOW A LAW BECOME$ A BILL: We done got us an education lottery, y’all!
Misspelling.com: Capitalizing on Others’ Stupidity.
Let the Boy Be Your Dog: Furry Weekend Atlanta Gets a Bone
The Landscaping Tales - Episode One: Shit Happens
Throw Off the Chains (Restaurants, That Is)
The Moldy Peaches and Toothpaste For Dinner: Cool Collides
Collect Deez
Why are we driven to collect things? And obviously, if you’ve never collected anything, I’m not including you in the above “we.” So don’t sit there saying, “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve never collected anything.” In fact, don’t read this at all. I’m not talking to you. You’re weird.
Alright, now that we’re alone, as collectors, what compels us to go through life picking stuff up and putting it into boxes and clear plastic wrappers? I know all the obvious answers:
1) We apply sentimental values to belongings, associating random memories to inanimate objects. Like the way I always remember my family’s first cat dying every time I see our Christmas tree skirt. Or, how my old slingshot reminds me of a time I was covered in human poo. (Both true.) There’s no denying that we tie memories to possessions, but that really just works on a one to one relationship with individual items. It’s not really true across a collection of a bunch of similar things. I can’t look at a collection of ball bearings or vacuum tubes and remember the day I discovered each one. So that reason is bunk.
2) Humans are innate hunter/gatherers. Tens of millions of years of evolution (or if you’re Southern Baptist, 4000 years of non-evolution) have made us into creatures designed to stockpile stuff. Until only recently in the human lineage, our forefathers had to constantly collect shit just to live. – Not literal “shit.” I don’t think that would work out very well. Can’t clothe the family in shit. Actually, I think some of your ancestors did collect shit. That would explain a lot. – Anyway, yeah, we had to be stockpilers to make it through the lean times, and so today that natural tendency presents itself through our collections.
I don’t buy this one either. As I mentioned above, some people never collect things, and I refuse to believe that those people are more evolved than me. They’re just weird. Plus, if our drives were to collect for survival, wouldn’t we hoard things like snack packs and squirrels? (You can use every part of the squirrel.) In most collections this is not the case. I said most, Big Susan. Instead we collect things like stamps and paperweights. Totally useless junk that tastes horrible.
3) Oh, so I said “stamps,” and you thought of the next reason all on your own: people collect as investments. You’re a genius. You win a prize. Here’s a stamp. Now I want you to take that stamp, hold onto it for 40 years until maybe, maaayybe it triples in value, then find a motivated buyer, sell it and do a little dance. Nooo, not that dance. Less jig, more arm waving… riiight, THAT dance. Funny.
I think you get the point. Most people aren’t collecting for the goal of long term returns. We’ve all had that friend with several unidentifiable clothes stains that collected a card catalog’s worth of comic books. His defense was always that some day they’d be worth a ton. In reality those books never get sold, they just sit, Mylar sealed, in mother’s basement, hidden with shame from any real or imaginary girlfriends. Granted, some people do collect for investment, but these people aren’t normal. They’re capitalists.
So, if not for those reasons, why do we collect? I think it’s because we’re odd. We are all very strange, weird, odd, individual people, and our collections are extensions of ourselves. Something in us is drawn to some aspect of these mini-obsessions. Maybe it is a memory, or gluttony, or greed, like I mentioned above. Or maybe it’s a texture, or color, or certain realm of tackiness that attracts us. Regardless, these things are symbols of us. The stuff we choose to collect becomes part of our identity. They show other people who we are and that we finally mastered that “one of these things is not like the other” game on Sesame Street.
Now, I wouldn’t give this so much thought if I didn’t have a few collections of my own. Now I’m wondering what they say about me. Let’s examine a few. (Wow this will be like free therapy.)
My collection of acorns:
Acorns are possibly the easiest thing in the world to collect. You go to pretty much any wooded area, look down and you’re well on your way to a hobby. This tells me I’m lazy. I’m not willing to put too much time or effort into an interest. In fact I think ease of attainment is a theme that runs through all my collections. Possibly the only thing easier to collect than acorns are rocks. I also collected rocks.
My collection of Super-Balls:
You know those gumball machines at the exit of the grocery store that didn’t give you gum, but instead rubber balls. I collected the hell out of those. That was mostly due to the fact that it was a blast to empty a bag of 100 of those bad boys out onto the kitchen floor. It was like being inside a shook up bottle of sprite. So effervescent. Also, I liked the way they smelled. While the collection has died down, I still can’t resist going by one of those machines with a quarter in my pocket. That collection tells me I am now and probably always will be a little immature, and I like the smell of rubber, and I spend too much on impulse buys.
My collection of dead bees:
Yes, dead bees. This is my newest collection, and honestly it even freaks me out a little. A few months ago I realized my house was infested with bees. Early on I made the decision to coexist with the bees. I was only stung once. After winter set in the bees started to drop like flies, only more beelike. Instead of just sweeping them up I started a pile. The pile grew and now I think it is safe to say I have a collection. This collection tells me a few things. One, I’m a little nuts. Two, I’m subconsciously gathering the ingredients for a witch’s brew or an Asian aphrodisiac. Three, I’m still mad at bees for the time that one stung me on the eyelid in 3rd grade and messed up picture day.
Wow that was boring even for me. Collections are personal for a reason. They tell us a lot about our individuality, but on a whole we’re all pretty dull. So, what do you collect, and what does it say about you? I’m curious, really I am.
These are the boys.