Why I Love the Show, Hoarders

Actually, I guess I don't love-love the show. I don't tune into it religiously, but I'll watch it if I happen upon it. The result? I throw stuff out. The idea of having so much crap that you can't walk around in your home makes me feel sick. And I've never given something away or thrown it out and then later regretted it or even missed whatever it was. This weekend, I took three huge bags of clothes to Circle Thrift and felt jubilant to get rid of these clothes I hadn't worn in a year or more (that's the rule. If you haven't worn it in the last 12 months, it needs to go. Unless it's that blue skirt with the sparkly things on it that's perfect for no occasion, but just too cute to get rid of). I also don't collect anything. Many of the people on the show are big collectors--of coffee mugs, of guns, of dolls, of things that belonged to dead people, of cats, of cat feces. Also, they don't seem to mind so much if their carpeted floors are filled with cracker crumbs, dog biscuits, hair, toenails, scraps of paper, beans, cat litter, dead animals, leaves, and banana peels. And they seem to have childhoods where they moved around a lot or else were really poor and didn't get dolls, which is why they now have 400 china dolls with cracked faces and piles of Christmas decorations, since Christmas was their favorite time of year, even though they never got any presents except wrapping paper.