Okay, I admit it. I like stuff. I like having it. I like finding it. I’m the kind of person who follows the fliers all the way to a yard sale in Aquinnah and wants to buy the whole yard. Island yard sales are a tempting combination of musty old Vineyard stuff (“Hey, Mabel, why does this chair smell so weird?”) and a wide assortment of other objets that have seen two or three owners, the Bargain Box, a short stay at the Thrift Shop, and finally...“3 Family – Something 4 Everyone!”
That’s where I come in, like a kid in a very messy candy store, staring at a jumble of things that are of no use whatsoever – except that I want them.
I love those timesaving devices that will make my life easier (“Slice Through Four Tomatoes at One Time!”). I’m drawn to anything vintage (“Rubber Ducky! – no longer floats”). And if something bears the name of the Island and is more than four years old, I’m a goner (“Walk-on Beach Pass to Lucy Vincent – circa 2003!”).
Please know that I consider it politically incorrect to want useless things. But still, all those warnings about waste, over-consumption, needless buying? They haven’t done me a bit of good.
This brings up Problem Number Two. An even greater dilemma than my wanting stuff is my keeping stuff. This is ill advised when you live in a postage-stamp-sized rental in West Tisbury. I’m incapable of following that rule: “If you haven’t used it in two years, get rid of it.” Instead I use ancient Egyptian guidelines: “If you haven’t used it in your lifetime, build a pyramid and take it with you.”
What can you do with stuff if you don’t wear it out or get rid of it, but you keep getting more of it? The only real option is to keep moving – into bigger spaces. In the absence of this possibility, I explored another – defying the laws of physics. In a variation on “when an irresistible force meets an immovable object,” I worked on “when a finite space meets an infinite number of objects.” I put up shelves and stuffed closets, but they soon filled. So I began putting things in bags, but I had to store them in the only place that was left – on the floor. When I looked around one day and saw that I had started a career as an at-home bag lady, I got worried.
I began to lose things that I knew were somewhere in my stuff. Then I hired people to help me find them. If there were an “SA” (Stuff Anonymous) I would have joined. I saw myself going the way of the Collyer brothers, the legendary New Yorkers who collected fourteen pianos and literally tons of papers and magazines, before their ceiling-high stuff fell over and killed one of them.
Finally, in a panic, I had to bite the bullet and get rid of something. My own yard sale ad went in: “Something 4 Everyone!” But why wasn’t anyone interested in the opalescent orange ball in a plastic shell that I’d gotten from a gum ball machine in 1976? Or the mini Levi’s Misses Fit Guide for Jeans with pictures and descriptions of five different blue jeans – so useful in a jeans-buying crisis? Or the lime lamp shade?
What was left after my sale would have filled a small barn. With gritted teeth I packed several Cronig’s bags and hauled them to West Tisbury’s home for wayward goods, Le Dumptique, at Le Landfill. Proud that I had finally parted with some of my cherished worldly goods, I came home and calculated how much space I’d recovered in the “postage stamp.”
About six square feet.
Worse, I soon found out that some of my stuff hadn’t really left at all. On the Island, what goes around, comes around – and around and around and around. Days later I walked down Main Street in Vineyard Haven and ran into a friend – who was wearing what I suddenly decided had been my favorite sweater. (How could I have let it go?) We chatted. I mentioned that she was wearing my ex-clothing and complimented her on how good it looked on her, while secretly harboring thoughts of tearing it off her shoulders and fleeing down the street screaming, “It’s mine! It’s mine! You’ll never find me!” Except that she has my address, home and cell phone numbers, and e-mail. Besides, she said she’s having a yard sale next weekend and I really want to go. I bet she’ll have some good stuff.
