Hoarders are our true heroes

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Once again, it’s time to save a much-beleaguered minority group from the public shame and private regret that reduce their lives to ceaseless misery. We’ve already rescued lazy people and the absent-minded elderly and liars from the ignominy of their existence, and now we’re going to resurrect the reputations of hoarders.

Yes, hoarders, the people we mock for saving every National Geographic (Kids, ask your grandparents about this.) since 1942 and stashing their Nehru jackets (Kids, ask your grandparents about this.) in the back of the closet and cataloging their old printer cables (Kids…never mind.) in case the wi-fi goes out.

Disdained by the elites, these packrats are saving us all from disaster and getting damned little credit for their sacrifice. Those days are gone, though, as we bring packrattiness into the light and celebrate the true heroes of the world.

Yeah, the zeitgeist says we’re supposed to jettison anything that doesn’t bring us joy and less is more and minimalism is ultra-cool, but that’s just hipster blather. We all know better, and we’ve all experienced the blowback from even the most petty downsizing.

No matter what it is, no matter how long an old, useless, broken-down item (insert husband joke here) has been lying around the house (insert another husband joke here), we end up needing it desperately…one day after we throw it out. (Not husbands, but other stuff.) It doesn’t even matter if we know what the item is. If we toss it out, it becomes essential retroactively.

Last month, I finally dumped a bunch of old jars and lids that I was keeping in reserve, just in case I needed some old jars and lids for reasons I couldn’t imagine. After keeping the jars in a kitchen cabinet for three years, I finally lightened my burden. The next day, I needed something thin and metallic, much like the lids I had dumped, to keep some shelving from putting a dent in the floor.

The timing of dump/need is so precise, so uncanny, that I now believe my possessions are sentient beings who like where they live. When I send them to new surroundings, they almost cackle and say, “I will get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!” (Kids, you are clearly too young to be reading this.)

Just to be safe, I’m never throwing anything away in the future, and I hope everyone else avoids the deadly mistake of cleaning house. Millions of us still have a box or two of N95 masks from the height of Covid and we’ve thought about sending them to the landfill, but we absolutely cannot do that.

If we do, we’ll be hit with a pandemic the next day. Nobody knows if it will be Covid 47,  rampant Ebola, or maybe even New World Screwworm jumping from cattle to humans, but we do know the only thing stopping the next plague is hoarded N95 masks.

Clearly, hoarders understand the karma of preservation, the incredible balance between excess inventory and critical reserves, and we are somehow better off for their sacrifice. That recognition makes me much more enthusiastic about my own collection of important artifacts, spare parts, and chatchkes.

Suddenly, all of it is bringing me joy.