This was the order of events:

1.  I decided to do Theme Thursday this week.

2.  I saw my husband checking my Twitter profile.

“So, do I have an adequate amount of followers yet?”

“I’m not worried about that anymore.  I’m just checking to see how  you’re slamming me this week online.”

“It’s funny!”

“I’m still waiting for you to write one of those posts about how much you love me.”

3.  I checked Jenn’s blog, found the prompt about collections and

Here we go.

I hate collections.  Most of them exist because people don’t want to throw their stuff away or they were tricked by companies to think they really needed all 5 different types of Simba from the Happy Meals or because they think once their Beanie Baby turns twenty, they can sell it for thousands and retire to live the good life.

And guess what?  I married someone who collects coins, baseball cards, hats to baseball parks he’s visited, Pearl Jam posters, video game systems, pint glasses.  It’s a never ending battle between throwing everything out (me) and keeping everything just in case (him).

If you open up our kitchen cabinets, you’ll see three full shelves of pint glasses.  We’re a family of four and we are always ready for a raging frat party for 50 of our closest bros.

This basement wall is about to collapse under the weight of Pearl Jam posters.

Don’t even get me started on the boxes and tubs of shit we have lying around.

I prefer things to be sparse or at least artfully arranged.  Like the way I display the six photo albums full of pictures from three years of parenting.  I mean, the way I color coordinated the boxes that hold the photos that we need for future posterity that don’t fit in the albums, it’s very classy.

And the baby shed in the basement (the nickname for the closet given by the movers) that is packed with outgrown clothes and toys that are no longer used.  Who cares if the door can’t even shut?  We don’t go in that part of the basement anyway.

I know I quit teaching but the twenty crates of children’s books are worth not being able to park my car in the garage.  It’s literature.  Just like my cookbooks and my Cook’s Illustrated magazines that I don’t throw away.  Barbecues would not be as good without that recipe for Hawaiian pasta salad in their 2011 summer issue.

Like I was saying, I hate collections.  People need to just let some stuff go.

(Honey, this may not be my love letter post but please accept my satirical olive branch.  I’ll throw away the magazines if you trash the pint glasses.)