John Martz

Confessions of a Packrat

I am a packrat.  I keep everything and throw out nothing.  So it baffled me when, planning for a trip, I could not find my passport.  I knew I had it somewhere, because as a guy who for some reason hangs on to every receipt, tag, box, and useless piece of paper, it was inconceivable that I wouldn’t still have such an important piece of identification somewhere.  (I could find the boarding pass of a trip to Ireland I took 4 years ago, but not the passport I travelled with)

I know that the expression, “it’s always in the last place you look” is baloney because as we all know, once you find what it is you’re looking for, you simply stop looking for it.  However, in this case, I think the expression would be accurate, as by the time I found my passport it was in the last place it could possibly (and even then, almost impossibly) have been.

After exhausting every file folder, box, shelf, drawer, nook, and cranny of my aprtment, I finally found my passport wedged far back and underneath my DVD player, which, housed in its narrow shelf, does not allow for much wiggle-room to move around.  I had to blindly shove a ruler underneath it in the hopes that I would scrape out the treasure I was searching for.

Clearly the passport was not put there by accident.  At some point I consciously slid it in there, no doubt thinking it was a safe a spot as any so that I “would not lose it.” Well thanks a lot, past self!

In my frantic searches however, I did manage to purge myself of a lot of collected junk.  As much of a packrat as I am, I do enjoy the cathartic process of throwing out crap every now and then.  For the record, here is a small list of things that got chucked into either the garbage or the recycling in my search for the lost passport:

• The box my 3-year old iPod came in


• 
  A hydro bill from 5 years ago (keeping in mind I’ve moved twice since then)


• 
  The negatives from a college photography class


• 
  A 2001 yellowpages for a neighbourhood I don’t even live in


• 
  A particpant’s pin from my highscool Reach for the Top team (which, admittedly, I only hung on to because I liked the typography)


• A plastic army man (with parachute)


• An application form for last year’s film festival

Plus, I filled 3 garbage bags with clothes I never wear, and donated them to the centre for addiction.  And yet, my apartment still feels like it’s overflowing with junk.  I think I need to take a second pass at it… After all, do I really need that stock photo catalogue from 1998?