Hard Case Crime Fiction. That is what it took for me to realize just how big of a problem I had.
It began in my youth with comic books and baseball cards. Then it expanded to records and cassettes and eventually CDs. At least in those days I actually had the time to look at and listen to them all.
Things really began to spiral out of control when I started earning some decent money after college. The collections grew exponentially into comics and cards and sports memorabilia and CDs and DVDs and books and paperbacks and action figures and so on and so on to infinity plus one.
The tipping point came in the form of a super smart and smoking hot rookie teacher named Fehmeen whose less is better philosophy regarding collectible clutter was downright contagious. And if anyone needed to catch the anti-clutter bug it was me.
To make a long story shorter — at least by my standards — my apartment-sized collection of useless crap has shrunk down roughly to the space of a small closet.
The most difficult part for me was letting go of a majority of my books. For years I had been collecting this series of hard-boiled mystery paperbacks called Hard Case Crime Fiction. They were so cool. I would look for ones that I was missing in every bookstore I could find. I had approximately twenty of them on my shelf but had only read about three and that was wrong. Wrong on the level that I was collecting just to collect and not for the enjoyment of the written word.
Now that I am living the less-clutter-than-before lifestyle these days, I feel I owe it to my wife because I love her and I worry about her. I know this may seem a little bit preemptive but I want to help you the way you helped me with my collectible issue. I know that he is your favorite Giants player and that you proudly wear your number 55 jersey every time he takes the hill, I want to make sure that one Lincecum bobblehead doesn’t become an out of control let’s-redecorate-the-room-in-his-image habit.
Cy Young
I can SEE WHY Fehmeen keeps you around. You’re so in tune with how she says and sees things… can’t you just hear her say, “I’m sure you can SEE WHY Tim is my favorite Giant and greatly deserving Cy Young winner.