and maybe boxes, too. That ratty dish towel or maybe an old bath towel. An undershirt with holes. You hate to throw away a good rag. That perfectly good grocery bag. That cloth tote. That old briefcase or backpack you used to carry. You could put things inside it. And carry it. And of course here's a great box, a perfect size for, well, something. A bunch of giveaway First and Business class toiletry kits. Some with tiny tubes of toothpaste or other toiletries. It's hard to part with things that could be useful in a pinch. They put pens in those freebie bags (using the term loosely, those seats on the plane are expensive). How many pens do we have around here? How many actually still have ink?
Sometimes I think I will have reduced my possessions to just these things. Rags for just in case and containers with nothing in them. Or some miscellaneous possibly useless things. And supplies of pens and staples and paper goods. A giant bag of rubber bands, gradually hardening and cracking.
Oh and masks. I still wear one in our elevators at my high rise when I remember. But I have settled on one kind: a disposable KN95. So there are a bunch around of other types. But I should keep them just in case. Right?
I suppose, really, if you could whittle things down to the essentials then it wouldn't be so bad to have supplies of "just in case" stuff. (Yeah, I have bottles of water, too.) Instead, I also have clothes I don't wear, books and magazines I've read (and lots I haven't), and a lot of CDs and DVDs. I did purge a bunch of CDs to the thrift store but kept a lot of jazz ones because I like to look at the liner notes. Or even play them directly instead of off my old, ahem, iPod! And we have collections. Glassware, paintings, geegaws, etc. But more on that later.
