Nesting Tendencies
The other night, in the company of both family and Family, I heard a terrible story. It concerned a venerable ancestor of mine, who had hoarding tendencies.
The uncle who recounted the tale spoke of how this old man, who was both family and Family, accumulated newspapers. He stacked them neatly against all the walls of his palatial room, and then stacked them against the previous stacks when he ran out of room.
"When he died," said my uncle with ghoulish relish, "He was all cooped up in this tiny space in his formerly huge room, sipping stout all day and being grumpy.
"They had to hire a fleet of trucks to cart the newspapers away, and when they did, they uncovered nests of scorpions and snakes and rats, some dead, some alive and wriggling."
If that's the fate of those with the archival gene in my family, I am doomed. What a way to approach one's 42nd birthday.
The uncle who recounted the tale spoke of how this old man, who was both family and Family, accumulated newspapers. He stacked them neatly against all the walls of his palatial room, and then stacked them against the previous stacks when he ran out of room.
"When he died," said my uncle with ghoulish relish, "He was all cooped up in this tiny space in his formerly huge room, sipping stout all day and being grumpy.
"They had to hire a fleet of trucks to cart the newspapers away, and when they did, they uncovered nests of scorpions and snakes and rats, some dead, some alive and wriggling."
If that's the fate of those with the archival gene in my family, I am doomed. What a way to approach one's 42nd birthday.
etched with acid at 12:10:00 am
3 Comments:
we now live in a time where electronic archiving of information is more practical, so I suppose you can archive to your heart's content without worrying about unwanted guests making a home out of your hoardings. Then again, I take it that you, like me, have a tendency to hoard tangibles?
that's... alarming!
you look like a neat person tho so no worries there. :P
I hoard only electronic tangibles, mostly :)
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