Why I Rarely Throw Anything Away

I am still finding places for stuff in my new house. You’d think, now that 80%+ of it is done, that it would be easy to finish up these last few little odds and ends. But instead, I think it gets harder. I have done all the obvious stuff, like put food in the pantry and toothbrushes in the bathroom and books on the bookshelves, etc. Now, I’m left with questions like where do I put a wreath that I don’t necessarily want to hang 24/7, but that I don’t want to give up yet? Where should my huge electric roaster go? It’s not like I use it everyday, but it’s too big to take up valuable kitchen storage space. So anyway, I am struggling with things like that. Those of you who helped me move, know how much *crap* I have accumulated over the years, and how difficult it is for me to part with my "stuff." I won't say I never throw anything away, but it is a pretty rare occurrence, indeed.

In my old house, I had a CD-player that held 200-some-odd CD’s. When my ex and I purchased it roughly 10 years or so ago, we loaded it up then and there with all the CD’s we had. The slots on the CD-player were numbered, and it came with this handy book filled with plastic sleeves, each of which was numbered, as well. The idea was that you would put the liner notes insert from the CD’s jewel case, into the sleeve with the corresponding number matching the slot number on the CD-player, into which you had just inserted the CD that accompanied said materials from the jewel case. When we were done, we had roughly 190 or so empty jewel cases, which we promptly tossed in the garbage. “Ha ha!” we laughed. “We’ll never need these again!”

Oh, reckless youth. Turns out that since I left the outdated PITA CD-player with the PITA ex but took my CD’s with me, that now, ten years later, I DO need jewel cases again. (Note to Kim and Mindi: This is why I never throw anything away.) So, roughly $50 in jewel cases later, I thought it would make a great task to delegate to my children, to have them match the CD inserts up with the CD’s again, and insert them into the new cases I bought. I had visions of shelves full of neat stacks and rows of CD’s, alphabetized by artist, organized by genre: a mess made soothing to the soul by its newly-found orderliness. Aaaahhhh! I could hardly wait!

I usually make a list of chores to be done, and let the kids take turns choosing which ones they want to do. So, because she picked it, the CD project started out being Bretten’s job. Somehow, though, she never quite got around to finishing it. I was getting annoyed and wanted the pile of CD’s and cases and inserts gone from my family room floor, so I finally assigned it to Mychael and made Bretten pay her to do it.

Several more days passed. I knew Mychael was working on it, but I still had a pile of CD booklets in my family room. WTH?!? Finally, I asked Mychael: “What’s the deal with all the CD booklets and stuff – weren’t you supposed to put them in the cases, and match them up to the CD’s?”

“I can’t, Mom!” she replied. “They don’t fit!”

“What do you mean, they don’t fit? All CD’s are the same size! They have to fit!” I said.

“No, Mom,” responded Mychael, patiently. “You got the slimline cases. They only hold a CD. They don’t have the little tabs that hold the booklets in the covers, and even if they did, the booklets are too fat to put in there, too. The cases won’t close with them in there – I already tried.”

“So you’re telling me I got the wrong kind?”

“Well,” she said, “Yeah, if you want to put the booklets in the cases, too.”

“Grrr!!” I thought to myself. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another!!” Out loud, I said, “Well, never mind, then. I’ll figure something out.”

I thought I might have to resurrect the book or something, but instead I just stacked the inserts and liner notes up and gave them their own space on one of the shelves in my new CD cabinet. It’s not as neat and orderly as I would’ve liked the finished project to be, but it’ll do. At least there is no longer a pile of cases, booklets, boxes, and discs on my family room floor.

This would normally be the end of another “Meh!” post about how children are sometimes (and often, with increasing frequency) more on-the-ball than their parents. However, Mychael put the icing on the cake. My mom, who was at my house at the time and witnessed the exchange about the CD cases between Mychael and me, later reported to me the following: As Mychael was leaving the room after I told her that I would take care of the liner-note-insert problem, Mychael brushed past her and muttered under her breath, “Phew!! Squeaked my way out of that one!”