Diary of a Bad Housekeeper

I have a lot of stuff. It's everywhere, crammed into every available nook and cranny in my 700-square-foot quarters. And I have reason to believe that if I had twice the space, I'd accumulate twice the stuff.

No, I'm not one of those crazy people who stacks the walkways with six-foot-high newspapers and other trash, nor do I bring home found objects from dumpsters or anything like that. I'm a keeper. I buy something, or someone gives me something, and if I'm not using it, I decide not to waste it (after all, I might have a need for it someday), or I feel guilty about getting rid of it (if it's a gift), and then after awhile....if I keep it long enough....it's so obsolete that it becomes a collector's item and then I feel like I really can't get rid of it.

One of my worst violations is hardware and software. I've kept an 11-year-old Mac 8500 and all the accompanying software to install on it again in case-- for some reason-- I feel like I need to go back in time to simpler (and often more functional) software, or retrieve a long-lost archive from one of my many hundreds of stored floppy-disk backups. Yes, my old Syquest drive ($500 when I bought it in the early '90s) is still stored in my closet, somewhere. My 10-year-old SCSI color scanner still sits on a cabinet, waiting for me to find an old photo to scan. And until recently, I had an army of stiff cardboard boxes filled with old software disks and manuals for software programs that dated back to when George Bush's pappy was president.

I'm trying to mend my ways. Really I am. I've been breaking down boxes and recycling them and those old software manuals. But I'm still hanging onto all those disks and installers. Somebody....talk some sense into me....please.