I didn’t notice that we were closet materialists until …. well, until we emptied out all our
closets!
Last fall, my wife and I reluctantly moved out of our yurt
for the winter months, and purchased an old home in desperate need of extensive
repairs nearby. There were a few reasons
for the decision.
First, at age 60, I am getting somewhat reluctant to shovel
snow from a driveway that is 975 yards long, in a Manitoba winter. On average, we would be shovelling ten to
twelve times per year, and, after doing it twice in one week last winter, I
knew that I did not want to do it again.
Being a bit of an eco-freak, I also refuse to buy a tractor or snow
blower, just yet. So, it was shovel or
shove off. I chose the latter.
Second, also because I am a bit of an eco-freak and consider
myself to be handy, I felt that, if I upgraded the windows, doors, insulation
and heating system on this old house, the home would be a great year-round
retirement place, at a very good price, for some lucky buyer.
Third, I was not yet ready for full retirement, and this
project would provide me with a fair amount of exercise, a little extra cash
and a chance to learn new curse words as I demolished the old interior. (I did learn those new words, by the way.)
But moving for only the winter months meant that we opted to
buy a few new items of furniture, new window coverings, new fixtures, a few new
tools, new accessories for staging the home when we sold, and even new clothes
(because the snow was too deep to get back to the yurt, in winter, when we left
for vacation).
This spring, we put the house up for sale. It didn’t sell. Then, it didn’t sell. And, by late summer, it still didn’t sell. So,
we put the land and yurt up for sale. In
two days, it sold. Then, on the day
after closing the deal on the yurt, a potential buyer offered us an acceptable
price on the house. We didn’t sell.
So now, we had to move everything from the yurt to the
house. That was when we discovered that we were closet materialists. In a strange way, we were “outted” by a lack
of closets. Today, our garage is
overflowing with surplus possessions.
Our home is as full as any other materialist’s home, but with a strange
assortment of stuff that we neither wanted nor needed, but purchased, “just in
case.” Extra spring jackets, extra
pictures, extra seating, extra space heaters, extra lighting, extra lawn
accessories and so on. We have three air compressors (for roofing), since one
failed on the day we needed it and the other was trapped, by the snow, at the
yurt. We have four hammers, extra
cabinets, two sofas, two barbeques, an extra oven, two washers, two dryers and
four ladders.
I only purchased what I felt we absolutely needed, when we
needed it. Yet, as you can see from this
partial list, I have a surfeit of stuff.
This is the most commonly travelled path to materialism: we fail to plan
ahead, we purchase for the moment and we confuse wants with needs. It is creeping materialism.
This weekend, though, we will hold a garage sale. Regardless of the price, we will be
unburdening ourselves of our excess.
Anyone need an air compressor for a buck? And, do you know where I can
by an extra yurt?
