Hoarder

Max has lot of good qualities, however, knowing when to throw things away is not one of them. He never wants to get rid of anything. His famous phrase is, "but I can make something out of that". While that may be true--he is quite creative--I simply can not keep every piece of cardboard, plastic container, lid and scrap of paper he comes across. He's so insistent that I often have to sneak things into the trash when he's not looking. So the other morning when the noticed the recycling truck picking up our can overflowing with cardboard boxes he was not happy. (to put it nicely)



He was so upset in fact that as the truck drove off he ran after it shouting, "Bring my recycling back!" He was inconsolable for a moment as I tried to explain that getting our recycling back was not an option. When my explanations weren't working I decided to try a different approach and went online and found a clip from the show Hoarders on YouTube. He watched silently for a few minutes before he was sufficiently scared and decided that losing his recycling wasn't the end of the world. Max wasn't the only one grossed out from the clip. Right afterwards I decided it was the perfect time to clean the fridge and reorganize the pantry.

I don't think Max is cured of his "save-everything" ways, but he is definitely more aware. I know this because he loves to look into people's car windows as we are driving and say, "Mom--I think I see a hoarder!" Come to think of it I'm thinking it might be time to clean out our car too.