I have always been quite a packrat. At fairly regular intervals throughout my life, I’ve tossed all my excessive belongings into a box, shoved it away in the attic or basement somewhere. There, the contents of the box goes through a slow chemical change. When I drag out the box years later, I am no longer so attached to much of the contents, and can toss out a good amount of excess junk. What is leftover is obviously precious enough that I should hang onto it, though sometimes the same stuff gets put back in a box and shoved away to go through the lengthy refinement process once more.

To get to the point, I dragged a box out of the attic today, all giggly and a-squee, and opened it to delicately pluck out the treasures from the junk. I still have a rather packrat-ish method of rooting out the keepers.

Birthday cards from the second grade on up– toss!
Card bearing an image of a winter-phase longtail weasel containing the cryptic message, “Lisa, now you don’t have to take anything hostage anymore. Too bad I’m not your dead relative. Oh well, close enough. Peace on Earth. Jessie”–that’s a keeper

Crinkled, wallet-sized school photos of people I barely remember from the 3rd grade–toss!
Photo of my mostly-male 4th grade class dressed in drag, dancing with plastic skeletons and tossing pies during our self-written Teacher Parody play–I’ll hang onto that.

I also discovered mysterious gems, such as a form-generated postcard sent to me from Hulk Hogan saying such things as “I will strive to be worthy of your support.”

I also dug out a mysterious contraption that I don’t ever remember existing, called “The Etch A Sketch Animator.” It appears to be an electronic etch-a-sketch, with little buttons that say things like “animate”, “next”, and “recall.” Its biggest limitation seems to be the fact that it is still, fundamentally, an etch-a-sketch, and thus one of the most frustrating and difficult drawing devices of all time. I don’t know how you are expected to animate with it. Once I nab some AA batteries, I’ll find out. Muahaha!

Doing this makes me all excited to go pulling out more boxes. My plan to clean my room has failed; it will only get messier.