By: Revanche

Returns, exchanges, recycles

July 28, 2009

Stuff is a bit of an obsession for me.

Wasting money on stuff that doesn’t do its job bothers me almost as much as wasting money does but sometimes I can’t resist the gimmes. Shiny things – I like. When that happens, I try to follow a one-in, one-out policy but in such a small space, over-accumulation is much too easy. Ultimately, I’ve got to get better at rejecting or selecting because the time spent on making the purchase right, whether by return, exchange, or gifting, is getting to be a bit much.

Every week, I’ll root out another box or corner, decide what objects are just collecting dust and start disposing. You’d think I’d have nothing left at this point, but alas, it’s a never-ending project to pare down my possessions.

Most recently, the pile of things to Deal With consisted of:
1) A never used lock replacement set from Home Depot
2) A pair of flats from Target that failed miserably
3) Four Breyer horses in good condition, one still in the box
4) two pairs of shoes from Endless.com that I simply couldn’t love
5) a couple stuffed animals
6) an old point and shoot camera [Lexio 70] that I stopped using years ago
7) a pile of old books that were sent my way for reading and disposal
8) a pair of running shoes, half a size too big
9) t-shirts from Con

I managed Items 1-3 before San Diego, getting ~$20 in merchandise credits from each store with surprisingly very little trouble, and gave the Breyers to a good friend whose daughter is just learning to walk. Her momma loves horses and is very excited to add to her daughter’s future collection. I know that they were worth money but not enough to make it worth the trouble of trying to find buyers. They weren’t valuable models, they were just to make me feel better about not having a horse of my own. Yep, definitely went through that girl loves horses stage but now I know they’re too expensive.

(4) The shoes were taken to the UPS store for return and that should kick almost a hundred dollars back onto my credit card, and the (5) running shoes were finally exchanged for a better size. Free exchange! I even got my feet sized: they’re 5.5 but you’re supposed to go half a size larger for running shoes, and my right foot is freakish so it needs a shoe yet another half size larger. [If anyone wants to buy me running shoes, you now know that I need a size 6.5.]

At Con, I bought a hilariously inappropriate (9) t-shirt from these guys, and later realized that there is no way I can wear it in public. No matter how funny it is, I just can’t think of a single time or place it’d be ok. Call me a prude if you must, I took the shirt back and asked them to give me a different one. There’s no point in paying $18 for a shirt I’ll only giggle over at home.

Looks like I’m just left with stuffed animals and books. The books will likely go into the paperbackswap pile that my friend manages, but what to do with the stuffeds? And the camera? I really don’t want to set up an Ebay store for the camera…. Craigslist? Must overcome laziness factor!