The Small Stuff

My parents were both children of the depression when goods were hard to come by.  Their legacy to me is that everything has value. (This is a legacy evident in my overstuffed house, my happy trips to thrift stores and in the carefully staged interventions in which my family forces me to watch back to back episodes of Hoarding: Buried Alive.)

I’ve been searching for some of my mom’s documents recently.  I think they are at my sister’s house. She thinks they are at my mom’s house. Mom doesn’t know where they are. My sister’s tip was to look in Mom’s china cabinet drawers.  So one afternoon in April, Mom and I commenced our search.

To say that the drawers were stuffed is to say that Kim Kardashian has gained a little babyweight.  Each drawer required a fair amount of tugging to yield its treasure:

•  A box of GOOD PENCILES. Note that originally the box (lovely and inscribed with Good Wishes (?)) was reused to hold GOOD PENS, but my thrifty dad now used it for GOOD PENCILES. My dad was a mathematical genius who would often pull down his college calculus books FOR THE FUN OF IT. He read and recited poetry and did crossword puzzles, but somehow the spelling of PENCILS eluded him. And in case the writing on the box was not clear enough he added a fresh jaunty label and inscribed GOOD PENCILES again. Lest you wonder if this box was a foil for a stack of silver or cash, I include here a picture of its contents.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  TWO HANDMADE THINGS. I am not sure what they are. Mom insists that my dad’s mom made them and that they are hot mats. I had mom hold them up for a photo and instantly realized that perhaps they were components of an early bikini prototype.
  
•   A 1982 CALENDAR/LINEN TOWEL FROM AUSTRALIA. Is it a calendar? Is it a linen towel? IT’S BOTH!  This beauty was no doubt courtesy of my dad’s cousin Peggy who lived in Australia. I suppose it was too nice to actually use, so was buried in a drawer instead. (Sorry Elaine, I snagged it for myself and brought it to Durham. Where it will no doubt languish in a drawer because it’s too nice too use.)
  
•  A PAPER BIB EMBOSSED WITH MY NAME. I have no provenance for this item as Mom doesn’t remember how we happened to have it. But we better save it……
  
•   A box of DRAWING INSTRUMENTS. What the @#$% happened to the puzzle?
  
•   A PLASTIC PILL BOTTLE. Filled with....... PEN CAPS!!!! ) This may have been my favorite find!
  
•  ASSORTED OFFICE SUPPLIES. These boxes, carefully labeled in my dad’s draftsman block, illustrates his careful stewardship of pens, markers, and rubber stamps. While I did find the GOOD PENS box, I searched in vain for a BAD PENS box.
  

 While it was great fun rooting through these drawers (and we did actually throw away some things!!!) we did not find the missing documents. However I did get a terrific refresher course in some lessons my parents taught me.

1.       Everything has value. (Wise people save the nice things they have. Fools use up everything as soon as they get it. Proverbs 21:20)
2.       Organize your stuff.  (But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. 1 Corinthians 14:40)
3.       Some things are too valuable to be used and must be saved. ( I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. John 14:27)

Okay, I know I took those out of context, yet stewardship is what it’s all about. Taking care of our belongings, ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, our country, our earth.  I am working at home and in Seaboard to save, share,  recycle or toss stuff.  If there is hope for the alcoholic, the drug addict, the gambler, the thief, then surely there is also hope for me and my kin: genus packratus.

I’ll be sure to let you know when the Hoarders: Buried Alive camera crew shows up