Optimistic Hoarder: Box 003
Box: 003
Provenance: San Francisco, CA
Description: Bankers box, no lid
Contents:
Unopened box of scented shelf liners from Crabtree & Evelyn
Plastic bin of miscellaneous cooking utensils
Shot glasses
Miscellaneous unopened mail
Miscellaneous paperwork
Postcard from me from Las Vegas
Sports page from the San Francisco Chronicle 9/5/14
Final exam paper from when mom took some community college courses
Paper bag from Benihana (“It’s a good bag!”)
Unused voting ballot from June 2014
“Photographer’s Rights” document
Unopened mail with the following written on it:
Peter I 5:7
Psalm 115:12-18
Exodus 17:8-17
Psalms 133
Job 42:5, 42:10
Gift receipt from Na Hoku for 14K Plumeria Earrings 3/6/14 (and a return receipt from 3/7/14 with the note “She cannot afford it” $159)
New/unopened Micro SD Adapter
JC Penney coupons
Papermate™ ballpoint pen (no cap)
Costco ads (from 2014)
Opened mail from County Employment & Human Services where the contents were ripped up and then put back in the envelope
Lottery number selection sheets and old tickets
Empty marijuana bag (there were a few stems)
Receipts. So many receipts. Gas station, Jamba Juice, Benicia bridge toll receipt
Tickets for the Grand Prix of Sonoma
Unused forever stamps
Oil of Healing anointing oil pamphlet
Neon Avery ¾” color dot labels
End of year tally of tithes to church totaling almost $500
Two Christmas cards from Pasadena (one from me, one from me and my wife)
Christmas card from my uncle
Weed pipe, sticky with resin
Black Sharpie™
Empty plastic 35mm film canister on which was written “D3 Daily”
Two metal Kodak™ 35mm film canisters, sticky with resin
Ruminations:
First, a note on an item from Box 002 - Part 2: It contained a large “stacking” Squishmallow™ cow, with tags still attached. I had put it up as a giveaway on my local Buy Nothing group, along with the shelf liner and our old (still working) blender. A very kind person in the group sent me a message to let me know that this silly thing was a limited edition and it’s being sold anywhere from $150 - $300 online so I may want to consider selling it instead of giving it away. I actually have a number of things I need to put up for sale, so I was very grateful for this information. When I had unpacked it weeks before, I had done an online search and none were being sold. I’ve been reminded to trust my gut and maybe check one more time before handing things off. Considering the amount of emotional labor, time, and also money we’ve been shelling out for the storage which still contains much of my mother’s belongings, any little bit helps.
There was so much in Box 003 and while I’m sure I could say something about each thing, I’m just going to pick a few. I do want to say that none of the marijuana paraphernalia surprised me. My mother smoked weed all my life. It was actually really normalized in my home and so it never really had a big draw for me to do much of myself. Even now when it’s legal and I’m not against it, my general feeling about it is that I act stupid enough on my own when I’m sober. I am naturally silly. And also I have asthma and the smoke triggers that so smoking is never my interest. I don’t know what to do with the pipe though, which I recognize as one of her favorites. Clean it and put it on the shelf with her ashes, I guess?
Ah, the shot glasses. She collected shot glasses. There are probably a thousand in the storage. For some reason, this reminds me that one of her friends has one of her vehicles. I don’t even know his last name. I also don’t have a spot for another vehicle, especially one that is not running and would probably get stolen where I live. That’s a problem for future me.
I am very excited about the Forever Stamps (I’m a snail mail enthusiast).
One of the opened pieces of mail was a personal note from a family member who was clearly helping my mother out financially. This box was from the time when my mother was basically homeless and couch surfing among family and friends. I was living in Pasadena and would occasionally send what I could to her for things like gas and food. I couldn’t afford much but I helped where I could. So you can imagine how absolutely incandescent with rage I am at finding the summary of her tithing to a church that totaled almost $500. I have many, many words and thoughts that I will not be writing here but I’m sure that you probably can guess what they are.
I dusted off my comparative bible to look up the scripture she had noted on the back of an unopened piece of mail. A bit of background: I went to Catholic school from Kindergarten through 12th grade. I went to church with my grandfather until I was about 11 or 12 and my mother (who didn’t go to church) told me that I didn’t have to go. I regularly saw my bully at church and decided that if he wasn’t bursting into flames the minute he walked in the church doors, then I certainly didn’t believe in a god (and I stopped going to church, especially with those hypocrites). I remained fascinated by religion and took many religion-focused electives in college. I studied parts of the Torah. I read the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and various parts of other religious texts. I could, at one point, have a somewhat informed conversation about the Eightfold Path.
The selected scriptures my mother noted didn’t teach me anything new about her. I knew she craved community and I believe that church can be good for that. I also knew her tendencies toward magical thinking and the predatory nature of the prosperity gospel feeds that monster. Both of these things were reflected in her choices written on this envelope and the countless number of lottery tickets that were crumpled and faded in this box.
My family loves a container. We love things where we can put other things. My mother had incredibly creative uses for 35mm film canisters, as she was a photographer and we always had many laying around. One of her well-known-among-friends uses was to put shots of alcohol in the containers to smuggle them into places like Oakland A’s games or concerts via her camera bag. Academically, I want to be horrified but truthfully, I’m a bit amused by her cleverness and dedication to partying.
If the choice was between being responsible and having fun, my mother would choose fun 99% of the time. On her deathbed, which she was still mentally present, she said to me, “Welp, I know I wasn’t the best all the time but honestly, I have no regrets. I had fun.”
As a bonus for sticking with this, here is a photo of the scented shelf liner that was in this box. Yes, it is a hideous pattern of round little kittens which I am pretty sure my mother did not actually purchase herself but I have no idea who would have given this to her.
Thank you for being here. You can find previous issues of Optimistic Hoarder in the archive. Documenting things like this is hopefully going to give me the motivation to continue going through my mother’s things. I do not promise any sort of consistency with this newsletter and it’s free so, them’s the breaks. Also, these pieces are not heavily edited so if you catch something, no you didn’t.
Consider buying me a coffee. I’m gonna need it. And you can find my other work here.