Marriage is a beautiful and special thing that brings two loving souls together. Unfortunately, marriage is also something that brings the lifetime of crap acquired by two loving souls together.
Do you Mister, take me, my middle-school fanatic collection of Sailor Moon memorabilia, every doodle pad I've ever owned, my X-Men card collection, some Beanie Babies, those comic books from that job I had in college, 22 years worth of dance costumes, and all of the VHS tapes I plan to copy but never watch one day to have and to hold until death do us part?
Oh. Really? Yeah, I feel the same way about your car magazine collection that you've had --and insist on keeping, since 9th grade.
Just like the Mister (despite his good intentions) will never go back and re-read auto mags from circa 1999, I will never go back and watch episodes of Clarissa Explains It All or even cast a second glance at my stacks upon stacks of Sailor Moon card collections. It's just not going to happen. Does that mean I want to get rid of it? No.
Childhood junk is like the ultimate security blanket. If I'm going to hock my security blanket, I'd better be able to buy a Jeep with the profits. Unfortunately, my childhood junk is utterly worthless (but, it will make such a lovely addition to the attic, one day) to everyone else.
Here's why: everyone else already has it, no one's collecting what you have anymore, or the only people interested are a weird niche-market who are so hard-core about collecting that your lightly-used stuff isn't going to be worthy of their shrine.
For example, because everyone and their mother collected Beanie Babies in the mid 90s, it's hilarious to think that you'd get more than $1.00 for selling your entire collection (seriously, check E-bay. I did.) On E-bay, there are sellers with those things that say stuff like, "RARE Princess Diana Bear!", and they price it according to the collector's manual from 1996. Rare? Who are you kidding? I just saw that thing for .79 cents at Circle K. While I longingly wish I could recoup the $7 per beanie I spent in my youth, I console myself with the knowledge that I wasn't one of the lunatics who, in a deluded frenzy, squandered thousands of dollars on one tiny bean-filled doll nor is my collection of freakish proportions like my brother's.
So, why don't I just give them away? Because, I've held on to the stupid things for over 10 years now (oh dear Lord, I'm old). I'll probably have kids in the next 3-5 years, so, why not save these ridiculous things for my baby to drool on and my kitty cat to eat one day? My kids can play Farmville the LIVE version. Hah.
Now, the Sailor Moon stuff, according to E-bay, actually might be able to pull some swag, but naturally, I'm the most attached to my SM collection of stuff. And did someone say niche-market?
On the other hand, the random smattering of comic books I accrued might be worth something to someone. (What they're worth to me is apparently going to be $1.99 a pop.) Epic fail, Amy, epic fail....
The Mister's magazines? Surely we can build a shelf in the garage for them (he's most likely to read them if they're in sight).
Verdict? I'm going to at least try to hock the comics on E-bay. If I didn't run the risk of getting made fun of by comic book collectors, I'd throw the Beanie Babies in as a "bonus." (I recognize the irony of getting made fun of by comic book folks.)
So, at least until we have little tiny dependent people to care for, we take thee junk.
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