Backing up to the "nail straightening & cotter-pin salvage" issue, which I
found heart-warming, but which I accidentally "deleted":
I am not a collector - no, that conveys a too systematic approach - but I am
a compulsive smoother-and-folder of plastic bags and a washer-and-delabeler
of nice glass jars. "Nice", of course, is a subjective term. I like jars with
wide mouths and lids that close tightly (not the ones that have cardboard
liners inside which get wet after washing and if you remove them the jars
leak). I like plastic bags that are big and sturdy with good carrying
handles, and that will stretch just right to fit the rim of the kitchen
garbage container. I also like the totally transparent ones, so you can see
what's inside without unwrapping and untying the damn things.
Recently, after much reading on the virtues of "letting go" and simplifying,
I find I can finally throw out the flimsy, middle-sized bags and the
narrow-mouthed jars, and definitely the ones that leak. I can even toss
plastic forks and spoons (except for a few that could come in handy....
Simplification is a complicated business!
My excuse is that where I was brought up (Poland) recycling was a part of
life as much as eating and sleeping. When I went grocery shopping with my
nanny, we took a  shoppingbag with as many jars and bags and bottles in it as
our shopping list indicated. At the dairy store, milk (if you could get it)
was poured into our bottle through a funnel, and butter was wrapped in wax
paper. As we went from store to store, the jars, and bags filled up, and the
vegetables were loose in a net-type bag like they sell in upscale health-food
stores here. Not a scrap of wrapping was ever wasted, until it fell apart.
When I visit my cousins and friends in Poland now (ones of my generation),
there is always a drawer in the kitchen filled with old wrappings and string.
It makes me feel right at home and about 7 years old.
Ah, but we do have to try to dislodge some of the accretions that barnacle
themselves to us as we sail or drift through this life.

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
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