A submission from Sarah A.
Recently, I moved into a new house with 4 other roommates. Turns out we had a lot of trash by the time we were done making our rooms “our’s.” We had couches, desks, microwaves, espresso machines, desk chairs, and A LOT of cardboard that we needed to get rid of. None of us realized, of course that we were entitled to two free bulk pick-ups a year from the trash company. So, we sat with all of these items for quite a while and when we finally called Sunset Scavengers to pick it all up, it was really sort of sad to see them go. The couch was in the middle of the kitchen, blocking our stove. The desk chair was in the middle of our living room. And the cardboard was strewn throughout our hallway. All of this JUNK was undoubtedly a burden. I still don’t know why it was difficult to put it all on the curb.
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A submission from Keith S.
I had a large plastic file holder with about 6 years of useless documents in it. It had everything from old check stubs to old auto and renter insurance policies to receipts to things that are now long gone.
i decided it was time to get rid of it ALL. there was no point to keeping any of it. I went out and bought a new paper shredder, and shredded it all. It filled up a kitchen sized trash can TWICE, then went into the recycle. It felt really good to rid myself of this useless paper mess. Good riddance.
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A submission from Brian Z. Shapiro
Here is a short list of things I just throw out from my desk: - a packet as part of a new hire meeting call “preventing and addressing sexual harassment in the workplace”. Sexual harassment is italicized. - Info about the health plan at my other job. I don’t qualify. Those assholes. - 2 Medium format film spools that were in my pocket. - a note to myself with my FTP password. - a coupon to arby’s I got in the mail. (is there even an arby’s in a 100 miles. -flier to gallery opening (should’ve gone to that) -something about buying an AAA membership again. I don’t drive anymore. -what I think is aspirin.
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A submission from Amanda Schulz
I come from a long line of what my family fondly calls, packrats. My father began his collection the day he was born and somehow passed on to me a very unrealistic emotional attatchment to everything I own. The garage in the house I grew up in is to this day packed with boxes containing every phase, collection, and random assortment of useless objects he has ever had. There is a steamer trunk full of my fathers old Navy paraphanilia, boxes of old dishes, bikes with flat tires, the list goes on. A few years ago I made my first contribution to the garage and slipped a box filled with a stash of collectibles from my childhood obsession with the Titanic onto the rafters. Now that I live on my own, and have like others moved frequently in my last few years in San Francisco, I am finding it much harder to hold onto everything I own. I try my best to discard old papers, and letters. When I first moved away my father began sending me weekly packages. He includes newspaper articles on school funding, “How To” articles on personal banking, old family photos, and always a letter just to say hello. Though I have been able to part with many of useless aquisitions (old clothes, bart tickets, broken jewlery), I still find myself unable to throw away any of the useless things he sends me. I stuff the articles I’ll never read into random nooks of my room in an effort to trick myself into thinking I’ve thrown them away. Maybe one day I will, but until then I will just have to get more creative with my hiding spots.
-once a packrat, always a packrat.
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A submission from jon
i don’t really get rid of stuff willingly. luckily or unluckily for me, i’ve moved three times in the last year which has forced me to purge my possessions each time. not just old clothes and stuff like that, but i got rid of seemingly non-functional, sentimental items that i gradually collected: receipts from meals with friends, bus transfers from certain days, simple reminders written by others like a post-it note my dad had written that said “pool water.” things that serve an emotional purpose for me and would probably be considered trash if someone else saw them. as i write this, a number of these daily mementos sit on my dresser multiplying themselves somehow, only to be thrown out maybe a year from now. i guess they’re like proof for me, evidence of some kind of existence.
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A submission from Stephanie Griffin
My boyfriend and I sold our car and bought two bikes. We wanted to be one less vehicle in the world.
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A submission from JJ
In my twenties I was an avid thrift shopper. Somehow I ended up collecting dozens of bunnies from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. Most of them are children’s toys, but they are typically sharp and pointy and have scary expressions. They are much more evil than cute and cuddly.
My best friend had a daughter, Ella, who is now four and a half. When she was a baby she’d love to come over and play with her auntie’s bunnies (one of her first words!) but we were always afraid she’d take an eye out with a hard and pointy plastic ear or a particularly sharp fang. This last year they moved to Germany and I sent a big box of scary collectible bunnies to remind Ella of her auntie. It’s brought me great joy to know someone can enjoy them as much as I have.
I spent a great deal of time collecting these bunnies. Friends and family would bring them to me from around the world and people would head immediately to the bunny display case upon arrival to my house to see what new characters had come since they visited last. But giving them away was even better than holding on to them.
I saved one bunny and photographed it to share on your site. I kept the roundest, pinkest and friendliest one of the bunch.
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