Back when my 11-year-old daughter, Clementine, was still small, my husband and I would often organize impromptu raiding parties into her room at night in order to sneak away excess toys. An average haul would be a few dozen beanie babies or a score or so of Happy Meal toys; a pitiful night would consist of a handful of puzzle pieces, and a really good night would net an entire My Little Pony Dream Castle.
Back then we felt like we had to be sneaky about taking toys away from her, partly because we were afraid of the reaction we’d provoke, but mostly because we felt extremely guilty that she had so many toys in the first place; after all, collectors are not born–they’re made. She would have never had any idea about Barbie or My Little Pony if we hadn’t been the ones to introduce her to them. And even worse–she wouldn’t have had a room that was overflowing with “collections” if we hadn’t been the ones who kept buying new pieces for her. And yet, even though we knew that it was wrong, we found it terribly hard to stop; there was just something so appealing about seeing her little face light up with delight that kept us going back for more. Besides, we’d tell ourselves, what difference did one more little Polly Pocket doll make anyway?
Later, of course, after we realized that we could no longer walk across the floor of her room without hearing ominous crunching noises underfoot, we experienced a profound sense of giver’s remorse, and repented by sneaking back and trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible. In other words: first we’d binge, then we’d purge.
Eventually, time and exhaustion helped us to break free of this vicious cycle; so much so that by the time her little brother, Clyde, came along, we were almost completely immune to any kind of delight whatsoever. In fact, by the time he was three years old we discovered we could pull an unopened Lite Brite set out of his delighted hands and whisk it into the Goodwill bag without a moment’s remorse–and this at his own birthday party, no less. Anything to nip a burgeoning collection–and collector–in the bud.
After we reached that point–after we could cold-heartedly execute toyus receivus interruptus–our midnight raiding parties became a thing of the past, and we began culling the toy herd during daylight hours, in full view of all affected parties–almost like the adults we supposedly were. And, if we ever weakened in our resolve, we always had crunchy floor memories to spur us on. In fact, everything would now be almost perfect on the home-crap front if it wasn’t for one thing: Clyde’s rock collection.
There is no culling Clyde’s rock collection. To cull something, you have to understand its basic attributes: what makes it good, what makes it bad, what makes it common or unique. From there you can go on to weeding out doubles, or inferior specimens, or even broken pieces, but with Clyde’s rock collection, every sample seems to meet those requirements; as far as I (or anyone but Clyde) can tell, they’re all just a bunch of rocks. Not pretty rocks, not interesting rocks–just rocks. In fact, it seems like the only thing that really makes a rock “collectable” to Clyde–the only thing that sets it apart from all the other rocks in the world–is its size and the distance a parent must carry it to get it back to the house.
And so, by quashing all of his other outlets for collecting, we’ve brought ourselves right back to where we started; only this time, instead of hearing ominous crunching sounds underfoot, we’re hearing the sounds of an incipient avalanche. I wonder if it’s too late to get that Lite Brite set back from Goodwill.