13 things you should throw away right now

The AARP has made a habit of sending me emails that fall under the general heading of: THINGS YOU SHOULD BE FREAKED OUT ABOUT, BUT ARE TOO DAMN THICK TO NOTICE!!!

It’s always helpful to be reminded that you should be more way more stressed out than you currently are, a responsibility that usually falls to a family member, but just in case you don’t have one of those in the immediate vicinity to nag you into action, for a small fee the AARP is willing to fill that role.

For example:

A while back the AARP sent me an email about the stuff I should throw away “right now” which seemed to indicate maybe I should quit watching baseball and get up off my couch before some incredible calamity struck and my house burnt down or exploded in a ball of flame or suddenly needed “tuck pointing” a thing I’ve paid for, but still don’t completely understand.

The urgency of the headline got me to read the article and assuming you don’t have time to read it yourself because you’re too caught up in reading other people’s blogs, here they are, 13 Things You Should Throw Away Right Now:

1. Anything that doesn’t add value

Turns out the article is advocating “minimalism” because apparently buying and owning things can lead to financial stress and finding places to store those things can lead to mental and psychological stress and if you read all the emails the AARP sends, you already have enough stress to kill a bull elephant.

Also, if they’re advocating “minimalism” couldn’t the article have been “10 Things You Need to Throw Away Right Now”?

Nevertheless, you should only keep things that add value to your life and tell troublesome children they should now consider themselves orphans.

Sound advice, what’s next?

2. Just-in-case items

I could not agree more and what immediately comes to mind are the fast-food soft drink cups someone puts in the refrigerator and contain maybe half-an-inch of diet Pepsi that somebody saves just in case another family member gets thirsty and decides what they’d really like is two swallows of soft drink that contain somebody else’s saliva and leftover bits of a Taco Bell Black Bean Cantina Crispy Melt Taco, a name that seems to prove Taco Bell puts way more energy into naming their food than making it.  

On the other hand…

You know if you throw away that 6-inch-long piece of dirty string that’s been in that drawer filled with rubber bands and paper clips from a previous century, within 48 hours a bomb will be discovered in your basement and MacGyver will be in the process of defusing it and say:

“Quick…I need a 6-inch long piece of dirty string! …And your basement looks like it needs tuck pointing!”

3. Photos and paper

Not so damn fast.

When computers became a thing, the Kansas City Star decided they could get rid of all their paper and save a ton of storage space — right up until people began to figure out computers were not infallible and if the system was “down” (i.e. having a nervous breakdown) information might be lost or inaccessible when needed, so we were then told to “save” information on our computers, but also keep a “hard copy” which is IT-Nerd talk for “paper” because if they just said “paper” we would no longer consider them the Office Witch Doctor who could, with the right incantation, raise the dead or fix your computer with the magic words “try rebooting” which is IT-Nerd talk for turn it off and turn it back on again, but “rebooting” sounds much more technical so let’s go with that.

(Which, logically, makes no sense at all; if my TV breaks down, it’s broken and unplugging it and plugging it back in won’t fix a damn thing. Ask any IT-Nerd why that fixes a computer and they’ll shrug and say something that doesn’t really explain it because they don’t know either.)

Nevertheless, needing to save things on our computers and on paper meant our need for storage space had actually increased because we were using two systems for storing the same things.

Because Man (and Woman) cannot leave Well Enough Alone, methods for storing things keep evolving.

Which means we all have eight-track cassettes and compact cassettes and VHS tapes and laserdiscs and floppy discs and photo slides, which store movies and music and photos we might like to watch, listen to or look at, but we no longer have the cassette player or VHS tape deck or slide projector or Gramophone that would make that stuff work, so it might as well be stored on The Dark Side of the Moon, a Pink Floyd album I wouldn’t mind hearing right now, but I’ve got it on an eight-track cassette because that was the latest thing and could be played in my car – unlike my Gramophone – but I no longer have an eight-track cassette player. 

I saved hundreds and hundreds of photos on slides because that was the latest thing in the late 70s and 80s, but I’m pretty sure my slide projector doesn’t work and if it does it’s buried under all the other shit I saved somewhere in my basement and would require Indiana Jones or Lara Croft to unearth, while avoiding all the deadly booby traps that I assume exist under my basement stairs.

Hey…y’know what worked when it was invented back in 105 AD?

Paper.

Y’know what works in 2021?

Paper.

Which reminds me of all those people who want to read books on some overly-complicated device that’s unreadable in direct sunlight or has a low battery or won’t connect to Wi-Fi or displays items out of order or doesn’t recognize your password or displays “ghost” images, all of which are real problems I found in an article about Kindle devices.

I’m a pretty big reader and carry a paperback with me just about everywhere I go because you never know when you’re going to get caught in a long line at the bank or behind someone trying to decide if they want a Taco Bell Black Bean Cantina Crispy Melt Taco and those paperbacks work each and every time I open one.

Plus they don’t break if you drop one.

4. Actual trash

This advice would seem to indicate Bluto from Animal House is alive and well and has become an AARP member.

5. Damaged items

AARP talks about a chipped coffee mug, but extend their logic and now we’re talking about certain family members and if nobody springs to mind, you may be the damaged item the rest of your family is discussing sending to a “retirement” home, although I have expressed a preference for going back to college instead, since the only college I attended was in a mobile home located on the county fairgrounds and I never completed a single course.

So good news college recruiters: I have all my athletic eligibility available and if anyone is looking for a 68-year-old ballplayer willing to take a pitch in the left kidney, I’m your guy.

6. Extras/duplicates

Could not agree less.

Everybody seems to feel the need to keep tinkering with everything so your old stuff seems outdated and inadequate and that means you need to buy new stuff, and that being the case, if you find a pair of shoes or a shirt you like, go buy some more because you know the next time you go to replace that stuff you like, someone will have “improved” it and what you liked won’t be available and if you don’t believe me, just try and buy a brand-new 8-track cassette player so we can both listen to The Dark Side of the Moon.

7. Stuff you never use

Anyone in the market for a perfectly good exercise bike?

8. An abandoned hobby

Can’t do it because even though my left knee is held together with rubber bands and 6-inches of dirty string, you never know when I might like to go skiing again. And if I risk another knee operation by doing something shortsighted like going skiing again, it won’t even make the 10 Ten List of Stupid Things I’ve Done.

So I’ve got that going for me.

9. Items from a past phase

Man, these AARP people just can’t get off their “disinherit your kids” kick, can they?  

10. Anything expired

This would seem to include warranties, food products past their “use by date” and in certain cases, marriage licenses.

11. Things that bring up bad memories

Or…you can just wait for Father Time to do his trick and you won’t be able to remember much of anything except irrelevant stuff like George Brett’s lifetime batting average which was .305 and I didn’t have to look that up.

12. Clothes that don’t fit

No can do because this would be admitting I’m never going to be skinny again and Unrealistic Expectations for the Future are what keep us going. I will lose weight and play centerfield for the New York Yankees, although if I’m totally honest (almost always a mistake) the deal with the Yankees is just a bit more likely.

13. Digital clutter

And you could start with emails from the AARP.