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All of these things make a great addition to my basement collection. After it ages a few more years, it'll be ready for a garage sale—an important part of the junk saver's life. I think we love garage sales because they confirm in our minds that our own junk has value. We peruse another guy's treasure, then give him money for it. Often this involves a filthy, decades-old electrical appliance that the seller assures you "works just fine." To prove it, he has priced it at 25 cents. You get it home and find that it does indeed "work fine," as a doorstop.

But you've paid good money for this thing and you're not throwing it away. You take it apart to have a look, forget how it goes back together and end up keeping it, in pieces, on a basement shelf. Hey, you might need the parts someday.

Maybe the reason pack rats have so many tiny, unrelated bits of junk is that we love to take things apart. In my basement sits the skeleton of a Eureka vacuum cleaner that I tried to fix two years ago. I took the whole thing apart, cleaned it, put it back together and plugged it in. It sounded like a 747 trying to take off while dragging a pregnant moose. Maybe the problem had something to do with the leftover pieces that were piled on the workbench. My wife, a nonadventurous type, went out and bought a new one.

Meanwhile, I held onto what was left of the old Eureka. This despite the fact I have no idea how to fix a vacuum cleaner. But my junk-saving relatives would be proud. Together, we've probably amassed enough worthless items to build something potentially dangerous, then sell it at a garage sale to some poor sap who'll take it apart and store the pieces in his basement. On the shelf, right next to his Bullseye flapper.

Jim Killam teaches journalism at Northern Illinois University. He and his wife, Lauren, have three children.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Marriage Partnership magazine. Click here for reprint information on Marriage Partnership.

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