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"There&amp;#039;s a lot of trash in my life right now. We just had a bulk pickup day in town, my mother is paring down her household, and the big sweep continues in our office. This makes me feel good\u2014I can find new homes for things and get all righteous about recycling. Which would be great, except that a lot of other people&amp;#039;s stuff is coming in through the back door. Lately my son has decided that scavenging is fun, so for every square foot of space I free up, he fills two. Here&amp;#039;s the short list of what has come to live in our basement: \u00E2\u00A2 6-foot artificial tree with pink blossoms (it&amp;#039;s actually kind of pretty, but not upstairs-pretty, if you know what I mean) \u00E2\u00A2 Bamboo chair (the big round kind that looks sort of like a satellite dish) \u00E2\u00A2 Remnants of broken furniture (he&amp;#039;s making them into an art installation; I keep telling him, Sweetie, when you leave home to live in a rented apartment, they won&amp;#039;t let you bolt that to the wall) \u00E2\u00A2 Flashbulbs from Grandpa&amp;#039;s old camera (he gave some to his friend Mollie, who used them to make an arrangement with artificial flowers) All this stuff gets me a little antsy, but I keep reminding myself, At least it&amp;#039;s in the basement. When it starts to creep into other rooms, we&amp;#039;ll have to have a little talk. And I have to cop to a little garbage-picking myself. In our office purge I found a beautiful old Sony radio, a best-of-Sinatra CD (are people crazy?) and a pica ruler. (A what? A throwback to the days when we made magazines without computers, that&amp;#039;s what. It has inches on the other side, though, so it&amp;#039;s technically not useless.) OK, Jay, I get it. I&amp;#039;ll get off your back for a while.\u2014Diane Oatis What&amp;#039;s the first thing in your house you want to get rid of? Spill the beans (your husband and kids aren&amp;#039;t reading this) in Comments. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a41482/one-manas-trash-5741/?src=shelter_footer>