“Are you a hoarder?” a man asked me, because I’d asked for the return of a big plastic cake container when the cake was gone, adding, “No need to clean it, I’ll take care of it.” This special cake was about 10 inches long, maybe a four-inch cube. I never saw it whole, as a neighbor gave it to me one-third eaten, but still pretty with fresh strawberries and blueberries on top. The empty is hardly worth the water to rinse it clean, let alone any dishwashing liquid.
“What will you do with it?” he persists. “Well, I might keep it in the basement for a year while I decide.” He said he would throw it out and save me thinking. Actually, I take containers and other stuff to a preschool for use during a “Junque Day.” The director assured me that they use everything I bring.
A friend called me a hoarder years ago when she saw shopping bags inside my trunk. I tried to tell her that I used them all, but she was off and running, as she had just read a newspaper article about hoarders. It started when I made eight bags from lightweight denim, but they were too floppy for the checkout clerks. Two huge canvas bags with LeBag on them were irresistible at 99 cents, but too heavy to carry if filled with anything but other bags. They served that purpose in the trunk, both full.
“C’mon, how many bags do you have?” this friend asked. I didn’t know and later, when I counted, I decided to never, ever tell her. Isn’t there an old adage about not telling people anything they can use against you? Anyhow, I donated some, but then friends gave me a few, so I now have 30. Enough of that.
Years ago, a friend was engaged to a girl in Skowhegan. He said that her mother saved magazines and stacked them in every downstairs room. Maneuvering around them was taxing. Yes, he had suggested to his future bride that she sneak some of them out, since a more direct approach had failed. She finally took one magazine and threw it out her bedroom window, to retrieve later from the lawn, but her mother saw her and brought it back in — very upset. She had also kept all her husband’s chemistry paraphernalia as he had left it. I later visited the home, saw everything as described, and touched nothing.
The other hoarder I knew was a friend at Penn State, who later married, moved to Detroit, had four kids and settled back in Pennsylvania. Their house was of reasonable size, not huge. She, like the Skowhegan woman, saved magazines, so she could read them when she had time. Stacks were in the dining-room, which held a large table and chairs and a small desk, then another desk and finally, a third desk. She said, “How could I ever take time to sort all the paper? Bobby understood, so when one filled up, he bought me another.” We managed to squeeze around, find our places and then stay put, but it was something to behold their very large dog bending in two to get around behind the chairs.
The worst hoarders I ever saw were in a TV documentary. Two brothers lived in New York in an apartment so filled with stuff that even they could hardly push through it. They were being evicted and scheduled for counseling, because they could not bear to give up anything — however small, however insignificant. That is what differentiates a real hoarder from the rest of us, the inability to part with anything we have kept.
I will clean out the trunk of my car tomorrow — and then the attic. I am not a hoarder.
Byrna Porter Weir was born and grew up in Houlton, where her parents were portrait photographers. She now lives in Rochester, N.Y.
