Toys

I see the advertisements for some products and immediately think of land-fills. In the distant future, archaeologists will unearth the plastic parakeets, beer bongs, and arcane kitchen instruments and wonder, "What sort of people found these useful?"

Not that I haven't done my share when it comes to accumulation of the less-than-vital. Our garage contains boxes of toys that our children were given, special ones that they do not want to give away but which they also don't want to take and so their elderly retainers have storage duty. I can understand the sentiment. My home office desk has a small metal French Foreign Legionnaire that I had as a child. [Judging from his appearance, he went through some tough campaigns.]

My mother, a veteran of The Great Depression, was reluctant to throw anything away. "You never know," she'd say and, of course, you never do but in my experience every regret at having gotten rid of something is matched by relief a thousand-fold that other items are gone. In a moment of weakness, my mother threw away a damaged Humpty Dumpty doll that my younger brother cherished although his deep affection for the ambulatory egg was not known until as an adult he requested its return. The house was ransacked but Mr. Dumpty was gone, if not thrown then mysteriously taken. I suspect roving bands of King's horses and men.

As she said, "you never know."