A new "hobby" has arisen in our family. Well maybe not everyone in the family embraces it, but most of us are enjoying buying abondoned storage units.
About 4 years ago I went to my first storage unit auction and there were about 5 people at the auction, but with the popularity of the television shows the crowds at most auctions are from 50-100 people.
People rent storage units for all different reasons, but one of the main ones is there is a lack of space in their current living quarters. The garage, shed, attic, and every closet is full. What do we do with all this other stuff?
Most of the items we have found have been in these units for years. People have lived without this stuff for years if not decades. Work went into moving all of these items into these units. There was a conscious effort to keep these items (until they stopped paying).
Why in general do we love "stuff" so much? Toys for adults and kids both have a very short life span.
Yesterday was the first day Kyle, Ellyse, and Ayden attended an auction with me.It was uneventful until the unit came up for auction with a vintage pacman arcade game.
On Wednesday nights Kyle and I watch storage wars and he loves to immitate the different bidders. He raises one hand in the air and says in a long slow draw "Yuuuup."
So he understood to some degree what it meant to bid on something, so in front of us is a unit up for auction with this vintage game in it. I am standing with Kyle and all of a sudden his hand goes in the air and a "yuup" comes from his mouth. Kyle had bidded on the unit without any prompting. He only did it once before we moved him away and didn't let him win.
Thoughout the remainder of the day Kyle kept explaining that he wanted the Pacman arcade game in his room.
Stuff- it can give us comfort, it can lesson pain, it can bring us entertainment. The Pacman game may last longer than the average toy, but soon the novelty will wear off and we'll have a 500 pound eyesore that we will have to move.
Our family struggles with stuff, and sometimes due to Kyle's condition we want to buy him things. But that isn't the answer.
One day if we aren't careful we'll have a storage unit or 2 or 5.
In the end stuff doesn't make us happy.
If you would have won the Pac Man - I might have moved in as well!!!
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