I bet you’re on the edge of your seat in anticipation of learning the five articles from my hoard of nostalgia that met their demise on “Taking Back Tuesday.”  The wait is over.  Here they are in no particular order of importance…because they are/were equally as important.  They had feelings.  They were SOOOOOOOMEBOOOODYYYYYYYY:

1.  The Alpha Chi College Honor Society Medallion-On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, my anxiety on this one was about a 7.5.  You never know when you might need to pull the academic medallion out of the bag.  It’s kind of like when you get pulled over by a cop, not that I’ve ever been pulled over by a cop, and you have the Fraternal Order of Police sticker prominently displayed on your windshield.  Not that I have ever displayed a Fraternal Order of Police sticker on my windshield…except maybe in college.

2.  My half of the “Best Friends” locket I shared with Anna Roncone-I’ve had this since our tearful goodbye in the 4^th grade, so this one was about an 8.5.  I had a hard time sending this to its final resting place, because Anna will likely show up at my parent’s house today with her half of the locket, “Be Frie,” and want to join with my half, “st nds,”  and I’ll be embarrassed and SOL.  (Maybe I should run out to the curb and grab that last bag of trash.)

3.   One of the 62 bags of shells I have collected on various shorelines on the Eastern seaboard-Anxiety–7 out of 10, 10 being the highest.  I have these earmarked for arts and crafts projects with Jeffrey, but unless we’re going to do a tile mosaic of the Captain’s profile the size of the US Steel Building, I think we may have what some would consider an excess of shells.  I might want to address the bags of rocks I’m stashing as well, but I just don’t feel quite ready for that big leap.

4.  All tops in my closet that leave any portion of my midriff exposed to the innocent public-Hand above my head.  Deep breaths.  9 out of 10.  Eliminating this genre of clothing forces me to admit that I have no business slutting around on Carson Street with the twenty-something’s looking for Mr. Right… or Mr. Somewhere in the Ballpark.  No one wants to see Jeffrey’s mom’s bellybutton.  I hate that.

5.  A one-eyed brass owl-7.5 out of 10 on the anxiety scale.  At one point I had convinced myself that this owl was symbolic of inner knowledge and wisdom, “That which we know and do not see is true wisdom.”  Silly hippy.

As you can see by this list of casualties, this was a traumatic purge that has both served as an emotional catharsis and freed up a few spaces for some new trinkets when needed.

I thought you’d also be interested in some of the treasures that remain in the hoard unscathed:  a Jackson 5 Victory Tour concert program (thank you Aunt Karen); the pencil cup I made in the fifth grade which has the signatures of all my classmates and my school picture in which the Captain had clearly cut my hair the night before; and the balloons from an 8^th grade dance where the love of my life (What was his name?) broke my heart by “going with” another girl (We were 13.  Where the hell were we going anyway?).

Clearly these items are going to be worth some cash someday, so I think I’ll hold onto them for a few more years when I finally set for that elusive yard sale.  Until then, look for your girl on the six o’clock news.  I’ll be the lady in the tube top and Homecoming sash strapped to a backboard and being loaded in the back of an ambulance.

Headline, “Hoarder Trapped in Collapse Looking for Her Lucky Underwear.”  Has a nice ring to it.