What: An assortment of small glass containers, some I think were odd punch cups. (Also, one stray candle holder and a shot glass.)
Usage: Probably not much in this century, see confession.
How long kept: Since the early/mid-90s.
Why kept: They Might Be Useful. Nostalgia. They're Perfectly Good.
Destination: Housing Works.
Confession: In the 90s, these were pressed into frequent service in my home, holding votive candles, particularly during dinners with friends and other opportunities to entertain. Like a trend, it passed...and I also became more aware of fire safety, too, and curtailed my use of candles in the house.
I can probably name 3 times in the last 10 years I've pulled them out of the top shelf of my kitchen cabinet to wash them. (How does dust get into these usually closed cabinets?) Each time I've put them back into the cabinets.
(And I need to stand on either a ladder or on the kitchen counter to access this shelf. I'm petite. So nothing stored up there is getting frequent use.)
Confession, part deux: There are another 15 or 20 votive candle holders up there.
Sticky.
Bonus: This stuff is heading over to Housing Works in one of the bags from the dwindling shopping bag stash.
P.S. The other day, I floated to the top of the NYPL waiting list for
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee. This book
got a bit of press earlier in the year, and I had wanted to read it. Something I read this morning prompted me to clamber up onto the kitchen counter and get another bunch of votive holders down...they're gone now, too.
Worth reading, and I'll come back to it. In short, some of the people who have serious problems with stuff are considering their stuff in some of the same terms we are here (i.e. It Might Be Useful, Someone Might Need It, Guilt. etc.)
They're thinking the same thoughts we are, about a lot more of their stuff.
