Saturday, December 27, 2008

Too much junk

Christmas came and went. With the usual stress and arguments this year was a bit different. With the relentless snow here I wasn't able to get out and face the usual greedy inconsiderate crowds that grace our mall parking lots. So buddy you can have that cherished spot near the front door with your brood of snotty nosed kids whining in the back seat as you try and manouver that tank of an SUV into a spot marked compact. Yeah you finally got it in there with your ass end sticking out blocking the drive, but what do you care?

Then there's the wonderful stuff (crap) all adorned with shiney red ribbons and the giant green and red christmas tree ornaments hung from the ceiling. Not to forget those blue and white snowflakes. If one of those hit you in the head they wouldn't have enough sutures for that injury. But back to the crap. Those wonderful must have items for just $19.99 marked down 50% that you know you still have somewhere collecting dust in the back storage. Or did you sell it at the garage sale last summer for a buck and a half? What home would be without at least one Chia pet or Clapper? Don't we have what's left of one sitting on the back deck growing moss and wasn't the Clapper taking up space in a kitchen drawer?

I think the main reason this christmas was such a downer is because between job loss and debt people have come to realize that we've hit the wall of material things. What home now doesn't have at least two TVs and a half dozen radios? Have you been in your back storage lately? I'll bet you have stuff there you forgot you had. Things you haven't seen since you moved into the place because you had no other place to put it. Yeah "I'll get to that later" or "I was saving that". I seriously believe that we have enought crap stored away that we could start another country and still have enought to fill a few wharehouses. We seem to be following in the footsteps of Japan who until recently was turning over their home appliances every two years. The recycled was headed to Russia to be sold to their growing economy. So here we sit on a very large pile of stuff.

I think I did pretty good this year. I didn't send out cards, only a few emails to relatives. Didn't bother to wrap presents except one that I used a couple of store bags and a recyled bow. I did need batteries for my remote because the ones I put in last year finally gave out. With not much to give as gifts I remembered that I had left a present in storage a while back and brought it out. That was my christmas.
So I guess the retailers would like to boil me in christmas pudding and drive a stake of holly through my heart for my christmas spirit this year, but I really don't care. Maybe it's time to get just a little more Scroogy (you know, before he saw the three ghosts) because we've reached the other extreme in our holiday traditions.

So let us start a new year with less stuff. It doesn't make us better. It doesn't really improve our lives and we really don't need it. Ah, I hear we can get rid of electronics and the like for free here this year. Time to clean out that storage next week.

A Happy Less Crappy New Year to all.

3 comments:

Snave said...

I attempted to stress "stuff" a bit less at our house this year, but we all still ended up giving each other plenty of stuff. Mrs. Snave is thinking about what I suggested for next year, which is doing what J.Marquis and Mrs. Marquis did: instead of giving each other gifts, donate the amount of money they would normally spend on each other to food banks or other charitable causes. Not only does that kind of gift-giving serve a good purpose, it also helps alleviate some of the building-up of piles of stuff around the home.

I agree with you Demeur, our society is reaching a sort of saturation point. There isn't enough money out there for people to be able to afford all the stuff. The stuffmakers might suffer or go out of business due to the decrease in demand, and our economy might suffer.

Time to get some kind of large-scale government public works program in place? Maybe.

Whatever, I'm sorry you're having to deal with all the snow and crap. We have about 18 inches right now here where I live in NE Oregon, and because I am such a doofus when it comes to running all the fuel out of the snowblower at the end of winter, every time it;s the beginning of winter the danged thing won't run because the fuel lines are gummed up, etc. So I punish my back with lots and lots of shoveling. Oh well. I'll take the blower to the small-engine repair place, pay them at least fifty bucks to get the danged thing running, and then we won't have any more snow for the rest of winter (that's how it went last winter, anyway!)

I hope you have a great 2009, and that we will see a societal trend toward less "stuff". T'would be nice, eh!

NorthCountryLiberal said...

I'm with you demeur,

I bought my wife a 4.5" digital picture frame for a birthday present because she is always carring around photo albums to show people. She liked it and it was a smart buy, but then I went and bought one for myself. That night I woke up at 2:00 AM thinking about what photos I'd put in it. I took it back the next day.

For me it's not about money, I've never had much respect for that, and it's not about space, but it's about simplifying my life. The more crap I've got the more complicated my life seems.

Have a good 09

One Fly said...

Seems as if Demur has a seriously excellent bad attitude.

People's buying habits have already changed some and in the future the much needed change will be drastic never to return to those times of yesteryear.