My mom has this annoying habit of collecting clutter. It can be empty bottles (plastic and glass alike), hand-me-down's from in laws i.e. outdated curtains, appliances not used, only for display i.e. coffee maker given to her by her deceased mother, etc... The list is endless. Her usual retort is "We can still use it." Use it for what? If you ask me, all these stuff she collects are all junk.
There was this time when she was in the province running errands for my papa and I thought that this would be the best time to declutter the house. I told myself that I'll surprise her with my decluttering skills. And so, I spent the whole day cleaning and putting away the junk in black trash bags. I peeled off all the carpet in the areas which should not be carpet-ed in the first place. I put all non-working appliances like electric fans and iron in a box. My brother-in-law even painted parts of the kitchen and bathroom. After the general cleaning, we all felt proud of our work. The house looked cleaner and more spacious.
When mom called the following day to check up on the pets, I told her what we did. And my oh my, she was furious. We shouldn't have thrown away the clutter in the house, she said in between exasperation and disappointment. From there, a litany of what have you's ensued, she added that this and that was given to her by her nanay or sister or whoever. The clutter we considered junk were not junk to her. Some have sentimental value attached to it. We shouldn't have touched anything, junk or not. That was the first and last time we cleaned the house without her permission.
I gave up. We gave up. We let her keep her clutter.
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12 comments:
Same here. Mom keeps harping about OUR clutter but can't seem to give up some of her own. She RESCUES what I try to throw away.
YOu're just my wife - she throws away clutter and I had to stop her at times. She nearly thew my old Okidata personal laserjet printer at one point. OK, it is archaic and we have a new printer but it still works ! Now it's stored in the garage :)
Know what, removing clutter relieves you of that cramped feeling . - that I agree.
My you-know-who is exactly the way your mom is. It drove me nuts too back in the day. Old magazines, plastic milk containers, newspapers, and even chopsticks from Japanese restaurants were collected. Psychiatrists have a term for it: OCD which stands for Obssessive Compulsive Disorder.
Yes, another man's junk is another man's treasure. However, it becomes a problem if a man treasures objects that are actually junk to him.
Is your mom related to my dad? Sounds like it. He's an avid collector if I've ever seen one. Our bodega at the back is full of useless junk, some even of milk cans of baby formula when my nieces were young. They're in college now!!
When we were abroad, he would even collect old appliance neighbors threw away so that he could send them to relatives in the province. He he.
I tried desperately to declutter the bodega to no avail. He just refuses to throw things away.
em dy - same here! mama or papa would even tell me that the neighbors might find my junk useful. O_o
bw - hahaha! the okidata still works... but do you use it? if you don't use for years, it is considered junk! :D
panaderos - i think it's the "in" thing during their time. couldn't stand the clutter but i have no choice for now. just grin and bear it, i guess.
monaco - omg, looks like there are lots of them! not sure if growing up during the war years have something to do with the clutter mentality. but then, junk is junk!
kami ni bossing, opposite. Kung sya ang pack rat ako naman ang tapon ng tapon.
altho i have my own clutter. pero kapag nakunsumi na ako (which is about once every 3 months or so, mistula na akong vacuum cleaner na lahat tinatapon).
I have family members like that. Their junk was a big headache! So the deal was that they'd keep the junk in their own room, basta we don't see it. It gives the rest of the family members headaches!
magkakasundo kami ng mother mo. what's junk to you is precious to me. LOL!
ate sienna - may switching chuva ka pala. minsan tagatapon ng clutter at minsan kabaligtaran. :)
toni - that's what i'm doing! in my space, definitely no junk.
dr emer - naku po!
Growing up during the war years? i never thought of that. Maybe that's one reason. I remember dad's stories of how they had nothing during the Japanese occupation and how they hid in the forest.
monaco - same here about the war stories. probably the reason why our folks wouldn't readily let go of "clutter".
monaco - same here about the war stories. probably the reason why our folks wouldn't readily let go of "clutter".
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