Different Kinds of Kipple

I was a little stunned when I read this at The Atlantic.

This paragraph portion stood out in particular:

Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.

Of course this is going to shock me. I’m not a clothes shopper. I am a clothes wearer, but only because I’m unsightly and societal norms expect me to be covered.

Who are these people buying on average almost 66 new garments a year? If I added up what I bought (and let’s be honest, what was purchased for me) I’m sure it’s less than 10 items. And I have not bought any shoes this year, though I know I need a new pair of sneakers.

I’m an avid reader, but I haven’t bought many books. No new books certainly, and only a handful of used ones. I’ve got a lot of books on the shelves I haven’t read yet and, more importantly, nowhere to put new ones.

The garage, that’s a different matter. A year ago, I inherited a garage-full of tools from my mother when she passed away. I still haven’t sorted through most of what I got, though I have used the scroll saw (which technically belongs to my younger brother; I’m just holding on to it until he’s got a place of his own. I also have a small collection of floor tile for an as-yet incomplete tiling project, and some roof shingles left over from the shingle replacement on the house this spring. We do have an overabundance of bicycles, I will admit. Five family members, seven bicycles. I’d love to ditch a few.

I don’t want to accumulate more stuff. I enjoy new things to be sure, but it’s a fair bet if something new comes into the house, it’s because something old has completely worn out. Electronics are a challenge. I’ve got a small collection of outdated tablets starting to pile up. Some have batteries that have turned to poo-poo. Others have cracked screens or charging ports that no longer will charge. I need to find out how to get them recycled, but until then, they can sit in the study in the basement, where they don’t take up much room.

The monitors and printers are more problematic. We’ve got two of each. The monitors still work, though I imagine in another year or two, when computers get replaced, they won’t have compatible connection cords any more (one of them is still an RS-232 cable, for heaven’s sake, but we’ve got one laptop we can use it with. So we keep it. The printers are junky; they don’t really work well with the ink and toner any more, but they’d be enough in a pinch for a kid going off to college, so we hold on to them.

I did have to buy a set of a dozen microphone noise-reducing foam balls, because the kids left the microphone near where the dogs could chew on the foam. I’ll likely never have to buy any again, unless the dogs get a hold of it.

Things we do have an enormous surplus of different kinds of kipple:

1. Stuffed animals
2. LEGOs
3. Nails
4. Shingles
5. Bicycles
6. Sleeping bags
7. Canoes (we have one, but have used it only two or three times in the twenty years we've had it)
8. Books (when we moved here, we had 14 apple boxes full of books. We've added to the collection since then)
9. Rocks (a landscaping redesign means we now have a surfeit of rocks. Don't quite know what to do with them. Maybe another landscaping project is in order)
10. Paintbrushes
11. Christmas decorations (I'm technically not allowed to comment on the number of Christmas decorations we have. I will mention, at last count, we have twelve Christmas trees)
12. Matches (inherited a lot from Mom. Not sure they're really worth keeping but don't necessarily know how to get rid of them)
13. Tents. We have three of them. Two are mostly broken, but still useable. Can't justify the expense of buying a new one yet.