For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 13, 2021

Seems the opposite is true for me. I save my boys’ childhood memoirs but my boys don’t care about them. I passed on a few of their toys to my grandkids. My boys are not the sentimental type. They don’t even bother looking through the pictures in their albums that I made while they grew up. Is this a millennial thing? My daughter in law is the same.

What was Canada’s favourite thrift store then?

There are unwanted memories for some things.

I’m waiting for the bloody IRS to sort themselves out and get my THREE EIP checks to me! Honestly, it’s gone beyond ridiculous, they sent one check to Austria. I live in Australia sigh

Anyways once that happens, I’m having all the boxes my parents packed of my stuff and stored at my sister’s house shipped to Australia. Most of it anyways. I’m still upset with my sister for assuming I meant my reproduction tin box collection was kitchen stuff I didn’t want :(

What is one person’s junk. Is another person’s memory. And another person’s treasure.

Yeah, saw that last panel coming.

I’m extremely sentimental. That’s why, when we were cleaning out my parents’ apartment after my mother died, I took home a few “swizzle sticks” from the restaurant my mother waitressed at, and a shoehorn/backscratcher I remember my father having when I was a small child.

“Human’s spend their life collecting useless junk. When they die their relatives sell it and use the profit to buy more junk” – Quark.

“I know!” “Let the kids have it!”

Yard sale! Woo Hoo!!

How does the car levitate?

Lynn’s Comments:

This was done at the time when my parents were leaving their house of many, many years. My mother had more plastic containers than anyone you can imagine.

My daughter is 40 years old, my son is 34. I STILL put ornaments they made in daycare on the Christmas tree. I always will. They would be disappointed if I didn’t.

Solution=rent a dumpster

Dumpster time!

My Dad was a total packrat. When he died, my brother and I had a ton of his old junk to get rid of.

After what I went through with my mom and how hard it is to sell and we had to give away, I am not going to do the same. I have lots and lots of books, when I finish and depends on shape of book either trash or donate.

My wife died recently and I managed to “throw” away a few things she was saving to create things with when she had the time. Sadly she didn’t have the time. Now I have a house full of “things” and nobody who wants it.

I have moved far too many times in my lifetime to have formed much sentimental attachment to stuff. I’ve kept some old photo albums that my parents had, and a very few small keepsakes to remember them and my late brother, but everything else either was given away or sold before each move.

One’s trash is another’s treasure.

Keep any expensive jewelry, firearms, also some small personal items… But the rest either gets donated to the thrift store or tossed into the dumpster.

Yard sale?

In all that junk are probably things you were given as gifts from your children and your grandkids. That’s why I say no gifts….and mean it. If you feel you have to buy me something or die, then make it lottery tickets, food, or money. Gift cards don’t count unless they are loaded VISA’s ; )

Here’s another tip that suits today’s topic:

If you are downsizing from a 2000’ -2400’ house to a 750’ condo: make a plan drawing on one sheet sheet of graph paper and overlay your new place over the old one.

If the house is three levels and a double garage (if you use it for storage), plus a storage shed on the back yard, just put those drawings next to each other, and then place your new plan on top—then you’ll see how much new room you’ll have and you’ll see there is no way you’ll fit four floors of stuff into a one or two befroom condo, and a storage locker, and have room for your own body! I’m telling you, that’s such a wake up call!

Even the kitchen cubboards, which in the new place might be galley style, won’t take the stuff from three sides of cupboards and pantry from your present kitchen….

When I say that to my friends, they really start to clean out those blind corners and all the top shelves, and all their old clothes from closets, and never used bedding from the linen closet, and their pantry corners, and wonder why they kept all that stuff…

I have amassed a huge collection of comics, manga and art books. After I gone EBay sales may show an uptick.

Sounds like our family too—-

The proclamation in panel number two is basically condemning yourself to years of aggravation, frustration and stress. Trust me on that one.

Watch them say “This is a piece of crap” and toss away a copy of Superman #1.

Some advice from someone who’s been there: take lots of digital pictures for the memories, be brutal about getting rid of stuff, and do it QUICKLY, like pulling off a bandage.

Got news for you El. If they don’t pitch stuff you and your bro will be spending months cleaning it up after they go.

What gets me, is when things I threw away moving some years ago, show up on the Antiques Road show, and assessed at multi buck worth.

After 30 years of living in one place, when my folks moved, we practically re-stocked an entire thrift store!