Following up a post from a few weeks back I dove into my closets and drawers for what has become a relatively common practice here in the McRoberts household: the purge. This is an oddly life-giving discipline for me, unlike the discipline of self-flagellation, which is always such a bummer. It always gives me great pause to find so much unused or unworn still in my possession.
So, without going into much more detail, here is a list of the items I deemed purge-worthy, mainly insofar as they were clothes I do not intend to wear.
5 collared shirts, 3 pairs of jeans. 1 pair of slacks, 1 swimsuit… (really just don’t like the water), 2 sweatshirts (hooded). 6 pair of shorts (WHAT? I don’t even remember purchasing TWO pair of shorts?), 14 pair of socks (not including a few unmatched loners) and… ahem… 26 T-shirts (TWENTYFREAKINGSIX!!!)
Now, as often happens in a purge, I also discovered (or recovered… or re-discovered… ) a few things as well. This tends to only add to the strange guilt and confusion stirred by number the items in the “out” pile to begin with. Nonetheless, finding older and useful things can be a joy. Among these this time around were
A t-shirt I had created on CafePres, some really tacky Christmas socks (just in time), a pet we thought we’d lost, secret passageway to a world I’ve never known, inhabited by a talking lion… weird… and finally what appears to be a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (perhaps I should call someone? But who?)
![[Digg]](http://www.justinmcroberts.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.justinmcroberts.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.justinmcroberts.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Twitter]](http://www.justinmcroberts.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
I love this part of the purge definition:
2 a: to cause evacuation from (as the bowels) b (1): to make free of something unwanted
Yes, I’m 12.
Leave it to R.B. to go right at the potty humor… I, myself would never stoop so low… ahem.. um.. well..
I’d like my WMDs back, please.
Hey Justin we practice the “purge” in our house too.
First of all my family really doesn’t do the present thing around Christmas, although we do put up a vintage 1957 Aluminum tree (with the 4 color wheel) kind of our own laugh at the commercialization of Jesus. Our kids do end up with all that crap from grand parents, aunts, uncles, ect. So once a year we have the kids go throughl the toys and get rid of all but two of them each. The rest goes to the area outreach and are then redistributed to people who have need of them. I remember the first year I suggested doing this, my dear wife had a fit and I must admit the kids weren’t to happy about it either. That all changed when I reminded them of two things 1) We, a family of 7 live in a house of 630 s.f. we just don’t have room for years of stuff. 2) this stuff was getting a second life with folks who could use it. Now they look forward to the purge.