When your hoarder parent resorts to Facebook to convince you that really, it could be worse.
Case in point: Before I went on vacation I spotted an article in The Washington Post about a guy who hunts for dinosaur fossils. He's collected a lot of them. Of the 24 pictures of the guy and his fossil-chasing escapades, these are the last two:
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| From http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/tracking-marylands-dinosaurs/2012/04/19/gIQA4aJ2ST_gallery.html#photo=23 Picture is owned by TWP |
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| From http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/tracking-marylands-dinosaurs/2012/04/19/gIQA4aJ2ST_gallery.html#photo=24 Picture is owned by TWP |
I'm mildly shocked (you can't sit in the guest chair because it's covered in dinosaur bones!) but at least this the guy is collecting something that's actually priceless.
But my mom really likes dinosaurs so I sent her the link to the article, because after all, the other pictures and the article talk about how he finds the fossils, what he's looking for, etc. and is pretty interesting.
Her response?
I'm not sure whether it was sadder that she thought her stacks of ten year old catalogs could be compared to piles of real archaeological artifacts, or that I was about to leave for a vacation in Puerto Rico, not Glacier National Park.
Do you suppose that becoming a parent automatically makes a person crazy, or is it just a coincidence? Thanks for the chuckle.
ReplyDeletehehe yes, every time I think about having kids I feel like I should make the most of my sanity while I still have it. Probably the reason we keep putting off having kids!
DeleteOh goodness!! I get the, "See! I'm not THAT bad!" from family all the time too! I think people just want to feel better about themselves, so compare themselves to people way worse in order to justify their own actions. Ugh...hopefully they'll learn one day. Or just be happy you live far away ;)
ReplyDeleteokay, glad it's not just me! :o) makes me wish though that they'd focus less on the people who are worse than they are, and more on learning from the people who are better than they are. But alas, I can only change myself, so off I go to read your blog and learn from someone who does it better than I do...ps. I'm sorry I'm so far behind reading your posts!
DeleteWhereas I though 'it's worse not worst'! :)
ReplyDeleteI suppose it's still a similar issue though- he doesn't know when enough is enough, and his collecting makes daily life a bit tricky! But he has focused his collecting on to one particular , valuable, thing...he just needs somewhere to display them that is not his house! Or to let go, sell some, and make some money and space.
Having said that, it looks fairly clean from the photos, and sort of organised too. And not as visually jarring as, for instance, the photo at the top of your blog- perhaps because it's stuff all of the same colour.
I'd still get pissed off tripping over it and stubbing my toes on fossils!!
yup, it must be quite unpleasant to walk around his house at night in the dark! I gotta admit though, how cool would it be to say that you stubbed your toe on a dinosaur fossil?
DeleteThe "others are even worse" excuse is unfortunately popular... That guy is strange, but so are all collectors. the people who live with hundreds of creepy porcelain dolls or Donald Duck merchandise.
ReplyDeleteThey are different from hoarders who "collect" indiscriminately, but strange none-the-less.
and unfortunately both groups seem to equally be slaves to objects. I'm coming to really dislike the idea of having collections. Not something I want to encourage my future kids to do.
DeleteWell, that's good logic, it could be worse! I've certainly said that myself while watching some of the hoarding shows on TV.
ReplyDeleteyou've got a point. While she's distancing herself from the fact that she's got a problem, feeling good about the fact that we're better off than so many others can sometimes give us the motivation to improve ourselves.
DeleteAnd heavens, from your pictures it looks the entire contents of your house would still be less than the mountain of furniture + junk in mother's office! (or mine....)
I promise you we have the same mother. My mother gets offended even when we jokingly call her a hoarder. She thinks because she doesn't have bags of rotting garbage or cat carcasses in various states of decomposition that she is not a hoarder. "I'm not like those people on TV." No, not like some of them, but it doesn't mean it's any less of a problem.
ReplyDeleteWow, we really do have the same mom! What's worked for you when it comes to dealing with these issues? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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