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Stuck in Purge-atory:

I got 99 problems, but my clothes ain’t one

By Laurel Borrowman,
Life & Style Editor

T have way too much stuff. You
probably do too. Stuck in Purge-atory
is a weekly chronicle of the quest by
my roommate Emily and I to get rid

of extraneous excess in our lives by
giving away or throwing out one thing
everyday until the end of time.

hether or not you noticed
that I didn’t write a
Purge-atory article for

last week, I’m going to tell you

why I didn’t. It’s because I didn’t
get rid of anything between when
we last published and when school
recommenced, and it’s also because
I did nothing but gain stuff over
the holidays. Chocolate, soaps, a
toilet seat cover, a food processor,
an immersion blender, a five-pound
bag of carrots, and, oh—sleep!—just
to name a few. Christmas is pretty
low-key for my family and friends,
but I still felt it was excessive in
some ways; last week I didn’t have
what it took to start a new year

of continuing the chronicle of my
quest to get rid of stuff.

I made up for it, | assure you.
This week, I did what any guilt-
ridden, holiday-riddled, resolution-
pursuing procrastinator would do

 

and compensated impulsively. I
did the binge-purge. I crammed the
previous month of not getting rid of
one thing everyday into one day.

This Wednesday I dropped
40 pounds. 40 pounds of stuff. I
weighed it. It weighed 40 pounds,
and 40 pounds equalled 99 things.
How poetic.

It was pretty extreme. So why
that much?

Here’s what happened. For
Christmas, all Emily wanted (you
remember, my roommate /best
friend), was for her room to feel
liveable. Liveable meant spackling
the 60-plus holes in her walls left by
the whoknowshowmany previous
inhabitants of this apartment. It
also meant painting her bedroom.

It also meant prep, and labour, and
help. So, for Christmas I promised
I'd help her make her room more
liveable. On the topic of room
revamping, we got talking about
our dressers or excess or something,
as we do.

“T was just thinking this
morning how I have two dressers
full of clothes and stuff. I don’t need
that much stuff. [should pretend
one of those dressers doesn’t exist,
and make it so that I only have as
much stuff that can fit into one,”
says I.

“T don’t even like my dresser.
I’ve been thinking that I want to
paint it again, or get rid of it, or...”
says Em.

“Do you like those dressers |
have?” She’s particular about her
stuff. I’m driven more by cheapness,
necessity, and convenience, which is
how I came into my two dressers in
the first place.

“Uh, YUP. I like them a lot!”

And the commitment was
made. I would get rid of one dresser
full of clothing.

This week, I got rid of close to
half my clothing.

A daunting task indeed, so I
needed some kind of rules to guide
me. The criteria were relatively
simple. If I hadn’t worn or looked
at it for months, I chucked it (if you
can’t see it, it doesn’t exist). If it was
juvenile, I chucked it (time to dress
my age and ditch the Thrasher

| T-shirts). If it was stained, I chucked

it (as many times I say I’m going to
Tide-stick the heck out of it, I don’t).
If it was ripped beyond reasonable
repair, I chucked it (I’m never going
to pay somebody to patch my
favourite jeans, and if I do it, they’re
just going to rip again).

I was ruthless. It was difficult.
But knowing that I had to fit

everything into either the one
dresser or my tiny closet, and also
that Em actually needed the dresser
soon, it had to be done.

also had a tight schedule
to work within because fully
completing this binge-purge meant
getting all the stuff out of the
apartment to a proper donation
spot, which meant I had to use the
car that was at my disposal that I
had to return that night.

My friend and owner of said car
was set to land back in Vancouver
that night at 9 p.m., meaning I had
to meet him at about 9:30 p.m.
which meant I had to get moving.
There was the backup plan of using
a pick-up donation service, like
calling Big Brothers/ Sisters, which
is a stellar plan. Unfortunately,
history has proven that I’m the
asshole who calls and promptly
forgets to put the bags out on the
day of pickup. It just doesn’t work
for me.

The only time I made to binge-
purge was the day he returned, so I
had basically from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
to sort through everything, bag it
up, and find one of those street-side
donation bins to put everything in.

At 9:13 p.m., I was grinning and
giggling like an idiot, shoving three
full garbage bags of decent stuff
into the Clothing Bank bin and the
Disabilities Association bin down at
1* and Fir. A purge success.

Here’s the list of what went
and what moved laterally (Emily
took a few things, as did the dress-
up trunk). Even though Em didn’t
purge anything, I’m confident I
both made up for last week and her
at the same time.

Pants and shorts, bottoms:
14 purged, 1 lateral
Shoes: 2

   

Hairdryer: 1
Hair-straightener

(thanks for the new one, Mom): 1
Accessories, scarves,

toques, etc.: 5

Umbrella: 1

Linens: 5

Underthings: 12

Dresses: 6

Coats: 3

Toilet seat cover (Darren,

I love you, but somebody

else needs that more than me): 1
Shirts: 48 purged, 2 lateral
Grand total of things purged: 99

I still have one dresser full of good
clothes, and I got rid of 48 shirts.
48 SHIRTS! What the crap. So,
including Purge-atory 2011, here’s
total so far:

Days in Purge-atory: 58
Collective weekly target: 14
Items collectively purged

this week: 102

Items that didn’t actually
leave the apartment: 3

Total items purged this

week: 99

Total items purged to date: 193

This week in Purge-atory
makes me happy for a number of
reasons. Number one, why does
anyone need that many things!?
Number two, think about all of the
people who could use that stuff and
appreciate it way more than me.
Number three, Purge-atory 2012
has been kicked into high gear. And
finally, I’ve got a mediocre parody
to an awesome song that I can sing
without reservation.

If you’re having purge
problems I feel bad for you son. I
got 99 problems, but my clothes
ain’t one.