GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #719: PACK RAT, EXPLAINED!

 

You may recall, when I was still going through my stuff, that I found my Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain, and I posted pictures on my social media. Later that day I realized that these weren't actually the same ones that I had when I was a kid. I mean, I had these as a kid, but these weren't the original ones I had. I was thinking about it more today, and a lightning bolt struck me.

I finally know why I'm a pack rat. Yeah, I like to hold on to things. A lot of things. But I'm not a hoarder. I'm *almost* a hoarder. At least I throw stuff out, and if a pet died I would certainly not pop the li'l guy in my freezer.

When I was a kid living with my mom and stepdad and (at the time) my two brothers, we lived in this shitty apartment by the train tracks. I had to check my shoes every morning for cockroaches. There was no A/C, and the heat was provided by those big coils set in the floor in each room. And, most importantly, I had to always be careful lest I get the shit kicked out of me by my stepdad.

(As an aside, Pee-wee's death this week reminded me of the time my stepdad got my brother, Dan, a toy version of Pee-wee's Playhouse. I wanted to help my brother put it together, and I started applying the stickers. My stepdad stopped me and said that I'd screw it up. I was fairly confident in my ability to put stickers on a fucking toy, so I ignored him. He was right, though, and I did screw it up. When he saw it he whaled the shit out of me for messing up his son's toy.)

Thankfully my grandparents decided to rescue me from his clutches. The unfortunate side effect of this was, I had to surrender nearly all of my possessions. Mom would never let me leave without my clothes and toiletries and things of that nature, so I had to choose what I wanted to keep with me, and it had to fit in my backpack.

What happened when I realized I was going to get kicked out of the house I currently live in? I packed my books first and foremost. Big surprise, that wasn't the first time I did it, because I did the same back then. I shoved every book I could into that backpack, and I carried one of those extending files that contained the stories I'd written back then. To this day I regret that I had to choose between my Hardy Boys books and my Tom Swift books. The Swift books my dad had given me from his own childhood.

Among the things I left behind were all of my He-Man toys. Thankfully I had my Star Wars toys already at my grandparents' house, so no worries there.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I'm about to go into junior high. One of my friends decided to sell all of his toys at his family's garage sale, and guess what I bought off of him that day.

Oh yeah.

I'd never really thought about this before, but the trauma of losing almost all of my possessions stuck with me deeply. Think about the times I wrote about the piñata and the baseball I lost on the Prairie Path and the piggy bank and such. It totally makes sense now, doesn't it? I guess the shrinks call that a "breakthrough." Which means I gotta get rid of stuff now, right?

I think I'm finally going to start doing that. Dusting and cleaning everything off. Selling it off. And maybe throwing some useless shit away, too. My friend's Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain helped me get through some shit, so maybe now it's time to pass it on. Let the cycle of stuff continue.

Plus I could really use the money. Speaking of which, remember that I have a Patreon? For just a dollar a month you can get weekly updates of stuff I don't even talk about here. Stories I'm working on. I plan to do excerpts from forthcoming works there, and maybe even full short stories. I'm also planning on doing giveaways there, too, so why not join up?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #524: ALMOST A HOARDER

 I'm almost a hoarder, and the more of my stuff I pack up for my unfortunate move from this place, the more I wonder how I got that way. To illustrate how bad things used to be, whenever I removed cellophane wrappers from something, I kept them. This was decades ago. I have no idea why I was doing that, but I'd keep them. Do you remember those annoying stickers on CDs? I kept those, too. I don't know why. I just did. I finally came to my senses and threw that shit out, but the compulsive hoarder in me is still there, lurking. Waiting to save everything.

As I'm going through my shit, I find myself baffled as to why I kept some of it. It's just crazy to me. There's no way I would have a use for some of this stuff. Ever. But I don't want to throw it out. I'm forcing myself to do it, but my soul resists every attempt.

I think I can trace it back to when I was a kid. I remember driving with my mom in her blue Mustang. This must have been around '83 or so. We used to drive around a lot, and the windows were always down. I had this cupholder that you'd slide a tab into the rubber gasket for the passenger window. I'd constantly have a drink there, usually Coke. One day I reached for the can and accidentally hit the bottom of the cupholder, sending it flying out the window. I was horrified. I tried to get my mom to stop the car so we could go back for it, and she wouldn't do it. "It's only a cupholder," she told me. "We can get another one."

Five-year-old me tried to tell her that it wouldn't be the same because the new one wouldn't be MINE.

Fast forward a few years, and I was playing baseball with others. I had a ball given to me by my dad's parents, and we were using that. Someone hit a pop up that went into the woods, and we couldn't find the ball. I freaked out because dammit, that was my ball. Given to me as a gift, no less. I couldn't lose it. That's crazy. I scoured the area looking for it while the others knew to give up. Besides, no ball meant no more game. I couldn't accept that until my mom's parents found me and dragged me home.

So whatever this urge is, it's been there a long time. And I really need to get over it right now. I can't take everything with me when I leave this place. I have my stuff prioritized. Books are the most important and can't be abandoned. (That includes comic books.) Movies and music comes next. Stuff that might be valuable comes after that, but I'm probably going to sell that stuff. Childhood playthings are last, as I can't let that shit go yet. I'm 44, so I doubt I'll ever play with my Transformers or GI Joes ever again, but this part of me refuses to let it go.

At least I don't have a giant box full of ripped cellophane wrappers to pack up.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #141: I AM ALMOST A HOARDER

I am about a hair's length away from being an actual hoarder. I can still throw shit away, but when it comes to certain things, I just can't throw them out. You never know when you're going to need useless items. Seriously, I keep just about everything except for cellophane wrappers and cereal boxes. All right, there are other things I throw away, but for the most part, I find it difficult to get rid of stuff. I've always wondered why this is in my head, and I finally figured it out. Two events from my childhood are responsible.


RAWHIDE helped me figure it out. A couple of weeks ago, I watched the episode that had aired 50 years previous (to the day), and one of the characters made a kite for a kid to fly. People questioned him on it, since he hated children but seemed OK with hanging out with this particular child. And then a memory rushed back into my head, something I haven't thought about for decades.


I still have scars on my body from my experience with my abusive step-father, so it should be no surprise that my hoarder tendencies were started by something he did. When I was a kid, he married my mom. Shortly after, Brother Dan was born. I think he was still a baby when this happened, it was that long ago. Now I have three brothers from my mom and step-father and a brother and sister from my father and step-mother. Back then? I was almost an only child.


RETURN OF THE JEDI was the second movie I could remember seeing in the theaters. The first was STAR TREK 3, which my father had brought me to see. But Bill, my step-father, brought me to see the third STAR WARS movie, and he had a shitty habit of mixing Milk Duds in with his popcorn. I hated Milk Duds, so I had to examine each handful of popcorn to make sure no Milk Duds had found their way into my grip.


Seeing this movie led to me getting a Luke Skywalker kite shortly thereafter. It was Luke dressed all in black with his green lightsaber, if memory serves me correctly. Bill helped me put it together. I didn't care about kites aside from the funny Peanuts strips, in which Charlie Brown was always outsmarted by the Kite Eating Tree. But . . . well . . . it was a Luke Skywalker kite. For the record, the first poster I ever put up in my bedroom was of Luke Skywalker. I had a boy crush on him. Of course I wanted a kite with him on it.


We went out to the park in Berkeley on the other side of the viaduct from Elmhurst, where my grandparents lived, and he showed me how to fly a kite. He was kind of a weirdo, though. He liked to get it as high as possible, so he played it out until the string was down to the last loop on the cardboard roll. He was a scientist, so he liked pushing nature's limits and humanity's control over such things. Then, he handed the controls to me.


For a little bit, I flew that kite like a pro. And then, I slipped. The string loop fell off the cardboard roll, and Luke Skywalker flew away from me. Forever. The air rushed it away to another world, for all I knew. I chased after it, panicked, but I never found it. Crying, I returned to my step-father, and what did he do? He savagely beat the shit out of me because I lost a fucking kite.


For the rest of my life, I've been terrified of losing anything. So I'm hovering on the line between a normal person and a hoarder.


A few years later, there was the second incident. In my childhood, I'd been given a baseball that had actually been used in a classic All Star game. In a moment reminiscent of THE SANDLOT, I brought it out with my friends to play ball. I didn't know the significance of the ball, so I brought it into play, and it was hit so far that we never could find it.


I didn't realize it at the time, but I felt the same panic I felt when I'd lost the Luke Skywalker kite. It's no wonder I'm the way I am today. I hope to fix that. My place is fucking cluttered as all fuck, and it would be beneficial if I could clear some of this shit out.


The only question is, now that I know where this impulse came from, can I control it? Can I really follow through with this sudden need to purge my belongings?


I hope so. I don't want to be featured on TV for my hoarding abilities.