Male Quirks and Female Foibles

Amasstitis, My Man's Hoarding Disease

My husband, Wayne, is a pack rat. He hoards things that any normal person would have disposed of in a previous decade. Periodically I try to curb his stockpiling instinct by disposing of unnecessary items that simply take up space and clutter my storage areas.

When we moved in 2002, it seemed the time was ripe to displace some of his unneeded encumbrances. While he was at work, I began the task of sorting his cache.

In the attic I discovered myriad objects of dubious function. He still had parts from an old Commodore 64. For those of you too young to remember, the C64 is a PC from the early 1980's. The smallest computer memory keys today have more storage capacity than a C64.

I placed the C64 parts in the discard pile along with numerous other items I deemed of no import and went to get a garbage bag. Unfortunately I had lost track of time and when I got back, Wayne had returned from work and was rummaging through the rejects.

"Why are you throwing out my computer parts?" he questioned in his belligerent, stubborn, don't-mess-with-things-you-know-nothing-about tone.

Donning my I-know-I'm-an-idiot-with-blond-roots-but-bear-with-me smile, I replied patiently, "I'm only throwing out the useless ones." Pointing to a box of more recent computer paraphernalia that hailed at least from the 1990's, I concluded, "These are from machines that have enough memory to at least rival a disk. Those are from the C64 generation. I have more memory in my little finger than that machine ever had."

Mumbling about some of the parts being interchangeable even when the memory is obsolete, he reluctantly allowed me to place the C64 parts in the trash bag. As though suspecting that the other computer gear might find its way into the same bag, he immediately grabbed the packing tape and sealed up the box and marked it in large black letters – KEEPER COMPUTER PARTS. The box now has an honored place on Wayne's closet shelf, with years of dust accumulated on the untouched tape.

While he was thus occupied, I began to quickly stuff the trash bag with other 'treasures' from my disposal heap. As I picked up one item, Wayne grabbed my hand.

"Hey, you're throwing away a perfectly good fan!" he exclaimed.

"True," I conceded. "But you bought this at a garage sale in Canada ten years ago and it has never been used. It is designed to screw into a light socket," I continued, pointing out the obvious. "It measures six inches in diameter and puts out only enough air to cool a one square foot area. It makes a lousy ceiling fan. If you put it in a lamp, there is no place for a light bulb, so you loose the potential for light and gain only a slight breeze."

"Well, at least put it in the garage sale pile," he said, twirling the fan blades before he tenderly placed the piece in the sale box. "Who knows, someone might need a tiny fan. If nothing else it makes a great conversation piece."

Next Wayne grabbed a shoebox filled with floppy disks. They were the kind more modern computers did not have a slot for. Unless you have an old, antiquated computer, they are useless.

"These are my sermon files!" he cried. "And, look, here's 'Dinah,'" he said, referring to the book I wrote, hoping its mention would soften my heart.

"I know dear," I soothed. "But we don't have a machine that reads those disks. The contents might as well be written in hieroglyphics; they'll do us about as much good. Besides, I already scanned the hard copy of 'Dinah' into the computer so I have it on the hard drive."

"Well, I didn't do that with these sermons. There are places that will take the contents of old floppies and convert them for use on today's computers," he concluded triumphantly.

"Do you plan to pay someone good money to do that?" I challenged.

"Well, no," he conceded. "At least not until the house is paid for, but one day. . . ."

"Yeah, right," I answered. "And by that time you'll be retired and put out to pasture. You'll have no need for those old sermons."

"Well, maybe I'll publish a volume of my most memorable sermons," he countered.

"Are any of the sermons that old good enough to be memorable?" I asked with a grin. "Those hark back to your early days in the ministry."

"Hmmm..." he said, visions of his first 8-minute effort flashing through his mind as he quickly added the box to the garbage bag.

Despite his relinquishment of the C64 memorabilia,Wayne remains a pack rat. Disposal is a painful activity for him. I fear thathe has a disorder; I call it amasstitis.