For Art

Did anyone hear about the lady in Las Vegas who was missing for four months and then they found her in her own house buried under piles of crap she was hoarding? "WTF!", you might say. And WTF is right. Seriously, the poor woman was missing for months. Search dogs were brought into the house and the surrounding area and couldn't find a trace of her. Then her husband starts moving stuff around and sees her feet sticking Wicked Witch of the West style out from under a pile. (When he uncovered them, did the feet curl up and disappear?) How fucked up is that? When search dogs can't even find you in your own house because of all the other crap. And what happened to her? Did she have a heart attack and just slowly get covered up with stuff? Kind of like fossilization. Or maybe she needed this one piece of paper at the bottom of the pile and it all just came crashing down on her. The mind boggles. Ok, seriously, I know I shouldn't be making fun of the poor dead lady with the mental disorder, but FOR REALS. She was buried under her own stuff. There's a metaphor there somewhere. Something about rampant consumerism burying us all. But we can't find it, because there's TOO MUCH STUFF!

I can't even watch that show Hoarders. It's just too much crazy. And seriously gross when people are hoarding animals or rotting food. Ewww. It also hits a little too close to home. You see, I come from a long line of pack rats. And by long line I mean just my mom. Not that it isn't really likely there are unknown Japanese relatives somewhere that can't get rid of stuff. For the sake of our ancestors, throw out all of these chopsticks! It's true. Mom likes to save things. Things that might be used later, "for art". Like paper towel rolls. Or egg cartons. What art, you may ask? No one knows. You know how everyone always says they're NEVER going to be like their parents? Yeah, good luck with that. I realized this when we were cleaning house and Chris asked if he could throw away a bunch of foam I was saving. "No!", I said. "I'm going to use it." "What the hell for?", he asked. "For art." Shit. Did I just say "for art"?