One Man's Trash is Still a VCR
And why so many jars of nails, Dad?
My son and I are visiting the family in Upstate NY this week. He asked why I refer to Binghamton as my “home” when clearly our home is in Seattle.
“I don’t know, Son,” I said, taking a deep drag on my pipe. “It just is.”
“Mom?” he asked again. “Why are you pretending to smoke a pipe?”
Whatever, kid. I can’t explain it. It’s just my home. The place I grew up. The place where my most formative memories formed. The place with literally the best pizza anywhere.
There’s something about being here that just takes me back to the old days. The dusty photo albums come out, the nicknacks reek of familiarity, the stories about piling eight teenagers into the back of my brother’s friend’s station wagon to go drinking in the woods or an abandoned quarry or along a river bank just pour out of my brother and I like Milwaukee’s Best from the spigot of a beer ball. It’s shocking how much of our childhood my mom kept from my dad. Where did he think we were on Friday nights?
This is not the house my brother and I grew up in. This is the home that two mature, mortgage-paying adults in their thirties tried so hard to reject because they simply could not believe their parents would sell their childhoods to the highest bidder and demand they take the boxes of hockey cards and yearbooks and stuffed animals back to their own homes before they were incinerated! RUDE! But then they put a pool in the new house and we were like, “Oh, okay, I guess we can form new memories.”
I’m not a doom and gloom kind of person and I don’t like to dwell on the sad inevitable truth of what it will one day be like returning to this nest as a (deeply) middle-aged (ok, elderly) baby bird who no longer has parents. My brother and I both agree the hardest part about being orphans will be…having to clean out this god damn basement. Oh, and the whole not having parents thing, of course.
But seriously, why are parents such hoarders? Who are they saving these things for? How hard is it to stuff your trunk like unrestrained teenagers in the back of a station wagon and drive straight to your local donation center? Where are those eager-to-incinerate-all-the-stuffies packrats that popped out of their cave papered with the pages of the Sexy Pineapple Diet twenty years ago? I know we are not alone in the not-so-secret hoarding habits of Baby Boomers. Perhaps you’ve excavated similar basement gems from the mines of your kin. Let’s take a tour.
“Hi, I need a cord please.”
“What kind of cord? Fat cord, skinny cord, white cord, brown cord? Cords that power, cords that network, cords that connect a Commodore 64 to a Zenith TV?”
“How about a HDMI cable?”
“Simmer down, Elroy Jetson! Best I can do is an Apple 30-pin. Take it or leave it.”
Hey kids, it’s family movie night!
These are actual VCRs. (Google it, kids.) Actual unboxed and NEW IN BOX VCRs! These exist in this basement and they existed in the previous basement meaning a choice was made. When my parents had the chance to unload these relics of bygone days they were like, “Nah, will def need these in the new house.” Does the new house exist in a time capsule buried under an oak tree on a elementary school playground? Do you pull up to your new home in Marty McFly’s DeLorean? The most shocking thing is the amount of VCRs in this basement. There are several.
But what would they possibly watch on all those VCRs now that Blockbuster video is closed?
Great question.
Let’s get physical, but only for 9 minutes and then learn how to crush the shit out of some garlic.
Please note, these bins of VHS tapes go deep, but I found these two to be the most watchable.
Are you considering a trip to Upstate NY, but 18 years ago? Allow The Nostalgic Pack Rat to plan your next trip!
But what will I wear when visiting locations that no longer exist? How will I act? What will I talk to my taxi cab driver about on the way to Bahama Breeze? Hey, chill, dude, I got you. Everything you need to not just survive 2003 but thrive in 2003 can be found within these pages of vintage Men’s Health magazines.
An unwrapped bar of soap. Basement soap.
I tried to explain these gems to my son, but the idea of having something physical that played music was beyond him.
“It’s like a box of Spotify playlists. We made them for people we cared about.”
“And then you put those in Alexa?”
Sigh…
You have not reached peak basement hoarding enlightenment until you have buckets upon jars upon Tupperware upon little wicker planters filled with nails. I do believe this is a sacred rite of passage for dads as I’ve seen little containers filled with bits and bobs appearing in my own garage signifying my husband must be going through the change.
These old, dirty bastards also came from our childhood home and were a fertile hotbed of nightmare fodder. Not only are they not exactly PC, they’re creepy AF, but my dad insists they’ll be worth money some day.
Here lies the world’s oldest bottle of Johnny Walker. Yeah, Johnny definitely needs a walker. Ooooh, snap!
Oh there’s loads more, but those creepy statues started to freak me out so I had to bolt. Is this basement filled with one man’s trash? YES. Is it also the place where I just unearthed my sticker collection and discovered that banana scratch and sniff stickers never loose their scent? Also yes! Do I wonder what my son will say about the things my husband and I hold onto years from now? Definitely. Can’t wait for his hot takes on all the bags filled with used tissue paper and drawers stuffed with Ikea allen wrenches.
My Issues
And the lie was…
Thanks to those of who guessed which one of my truths was a lie in last week’s post.
A Bunch of Truths and Some Lies
In honor of my friends, The Real Housewives, let’s play one of their favorite dinner party game: Two Truths and a Lie. There are no rules EXCEPT: It doesn’t have to be just two truths and one lie. In fact, it can’t be. I don’t know how many truths and how many lies will be spilling out of me, but I cannot be held back.
Most of you did not follow the rules about commenting with your answer and instead chose to hunt me down in other places like Facebook, texts, or my own home (my husband.) You all had different answers which pleases me to no end, but the lie was #7 (my trip to Australia and almost being eaten by a shark.) I did go to Australia and had a scary experience, but it was white water rafting on class 5 rapids that were supposed to be class 3 and I almost murdered everyone in my raft because I refused to sit my butt down on the edge of the raft in favor of sobbing safely in the middle. My bad!
So Much Good Stuff Here
Not necessarily here but out there in Substack land. If you enjoy this newsletter about a middle-aged lady mom who once idolized Joan Crawford (and how could you not?) you will no doubt find many more talented writers to love and subscribe to. I’m curating a list of some of my favs including
(Exploding Unicorn), (Humor Me), and (Is My Kid the Asshole). Parenting, as it turns out, is a never-ending series of writing prompts.But Maybe Too Much Good Stuff?
My brother thinks a 1x a week newsletter is too hard to keep up with and should be once, maybe twice a month. I think he thought he offended me because he then quickly said, “Okay, every 10 days.” I can’t keep track of 10 days, but I do kind of agree on twice a month. So don’t panic if you don’t hear from in a week. I’ll be back the week after. Or maybe next week if something really juicy happens.
Thanks for subscribing, sharing, and allowing me to infiltrate your mailboxes! You guys are the best!
XO,
Shelly
Thanks for the shout out in this :) So many treasures! I'm have a case logic case full of cassette tapes I'm trying to figure out what to do with but will probably just sit in my basement for the next 10+ years.