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Life&Style

 

By Laurel Borrowman,
Life & Style Editor

I 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.

s this purge-o-mania
continues, I still almost
can’t believe how much

stuff I have. At the O.P. production
meeting this week, the same two
questions about Purge-atory came
up again.

“How long are you going to
keep this up for?”

“Well, I state in the column ‘one
thing every day until the end of
time’ sooo...”

Which inevitably begs the
follow up, “Haven’t you run out of
stuff yet?”

And my reply, “Nope.”

Iam nowhere near running out
of stuff yet, so I guess the end of
time has not arrived.

The question came up again
when I was chatting with a friend
about this pursuit a few days ago.
After assuring her I was still hot
on the purge trail and there was no
end in sight, she told me about a
lady she house-sat for, who is also a
purger. A purger on a pretty steady
and hefty scale, too, it seems.

I was delighted and surprised
and embarrassed. Delighted
because, right on, there are more

I’m not alone

people like me! Surprised because,
no way, there are more people

like me? And then embarrassed
because, duh, of course there are
more people like me.

If television has taught me
anything, it’s that there are hoards
of people who are hoarders. Why
wouldn’t there be plenty of people
who are purgers? I realized I’ve
been a bit insular about purging,
so I took to the world wide web to
see what else is going on in Purge-
atory.

Turns out, lots.

All I did was type in, “What
is the opposite of hoarding?” and

Why own more than you need?
Why have stuff just for the sake of
having stuff? Some people didn’t
think they deserved to have any
extraneous material items; this
came up often for people with
money. If they felt they had too
much, they would spend until they
only had a little.

There were also people who
thought it was a disease, the way
people think hoarding is. If I was
getting rid of stuff on the same scale
as last week (99 items, or 40 pounds
out the door), then I would agree,
but I don’t think purging a bit ona
regular basis is indicative of mental

“If television has taught me anything, it’s that there are hoards of
people who are hoarders. “

I got blog after blog after forum of
people asking the same question.
There are some funny words on the
matter.

Like me, some people started
purging because they wanted to
preserve their relationships; getting
rid of stuff because of moving so
many times that they couldn’t stand
to burden themselves, friends,
family, or strangers with heavy
excess crap anymore. Why move
stuff you don’t need? Why burn
bridges and break backs with that
stuff you don’t need?

Some people pinned it down to
simply wanting the bare minimum.

illness. Maybe denial is the first sign
though. Uh-oh.

What I found most interesting
at the end of reading all these
stories and inquiries and such, was
how many people purge, and how
people see purging in so many
different ways: good, bad, healthy,
unhealthy, freeing, restricting, crazy,
demented, masochistic, progressive,
archaic, insane in the membrane,
and so on.

I may be all or some or none of
these things. What I know for sure
is that I will continue to purge, and
I will continue to have stuff. Like I
said, the end of time is not here yet.

With that, here’s what I got rid
of this week (Disclaimer one: after
getting rid of so much last week,
this week was a challenge. The CD
collection is a solid go-to; judge me
as you will. Disclaimer two: Emily
has been doing some great lateral
move with scarves and pants, I just
neglected to tally them specifically
this week):

1 pair broken sunglasses

1 “commemorative” Canucks
game ticket (you know, date
memorabilia)

1 burned CD titled
Radiohead’n’stuff 2 (I’ve got
every Radiohead album on my
computer; this is redundant)

1 burned CD titled Rabbits +
Vampires (White Rabbit and
Vampire Weekend; again, on
the computer)

1 burned CD titled Nuntss-
nnntsss-nnntsss (Presumably
some shitty techno)

4 more CDs as follows:

Felix da Housecat, Virgo Blaktro
& The Movie Disco

Smash Mouth, Fush Yu Mang
Ursadelica, Ursula 1000
Chamillionaire, Ultimate Victory

Days in Purge-atory: 65
Collective weekly target: 14
Items collectively purged this
week: 8

Items that didn’t actually leave
the apartment: 0

Total items purged this week: 8
Total items purged to date: 201