Collector

    I am beginning to get a tad bit concerned that I am raising a future star of the show Hoarders. Have you ever seen that show? I am always shocked and amazed when I catch an episode, and think to myself, “How does this happen? How does a person’s house fill up with that much stuff. I don’t get it. And then I walk into my son Ben’s room, and I start to understand.
    You see, the kid loves to collect stuff. And on top of that, he values everything people give him. This can create the perfect storm. God forbid I should throw away that scrunched up pipe cleaner under his bed, or the leaf that is disintegrating on his bookshelf- he found them at school one day. I had to put my foot down on his rock collection the other day when I realized that ½ our gravel driveway was now in tupperware containers under his bed.
    He sleeps on the bottom bunk and the top is where he keeps all his special stuff so Katie can’t touch it. I   don’t usually care what it looks like up there, but the other day I thought I’d check for trash. OH. MY. WORD. He has a collection of dum dum wrappers  (apparently he’s saving them up to trade in for a telescope? ), he has a box full of my old coupons that I’m pretty sure he thinks can be used for cold hard cash, a huge pile of pinecones, carpet squares, egg cartons filled with life savers, feathers, dave’s old trophy’s, pipe cleaner art, a vase filled with old flower petals. People, I could go on and on. I did remove the Cheezits that I’m guessing he had laid out for his stuffed animals to eat.
    I’m gonna cut the kid a break, though, because he’s not the first amazing man I’ve known to have this affliction. My dad valued all of his collections, and was notorious for his boxes filled with old deodorant balls (he always swore he had some project in mind for those beauties). My wonderful husband loves to collect things too, and I am not allowed to recycle ANY Folgers coffee cans (you never know when you might need one, apparently).
    So for now I’ll just try and embrace the Christmas coffee mugs Ben bought at Goodwill and are SO SPECIAL, the dollar store trophy’s he keeps next to his bed, and the old chuck e cheese tickets he can’t part with. Because I love him, I love his imagination, and I know that if I draw him a picture he will cherish it forever. I do think I’ll have him clean his seashells though, our house shouldn’t smell like saltwater….