Excavating the Empty Nest

I finished shoveling out my daughter’s room today. It was part two of the cleaning – I got about halfway done a few days after she left for college but after several hours I gave up and closed her door. It was like that TV show about hoarders who won’t throw anything away. She’s kept every item since she was an infant – seashells, pretty rocks, pieces of Barbies –along with candy wrappers and potato chip bags she’d snuck into her room late at night, wadding up the evidence and tossing it under the bed.

I found two portable phones that have been lost for years under there.

Her room hasn’t been really clean in years. Sure, we’d change the sheets and dust and vacuum – but I made my kids clean their rooms, and when she “cleaned” she’d simply take everything strewn in the middle of the floor and piled on top of her dresser and toss them under the bed and into the closet. It would appear to be clean for a day or two, and then you couldn’t walk through it again.

When their rooms became fire hazards, I’d help them deep clean. First we’d pull out all the dirty clothes, some had been stuffed into the closet still wet and muddy where they grew mold and mildew and the odors they cause. Then we’d put away all the books that were tossed on the floor beside the bed. Then we’d arrange the stuffed animals and large toys back on the shelves. That all went pretty fast.

The worst was those little odds and ends left on the floor – things that didn’t really have a place, such as the toys they got for free from McDonalds or those little things they’d win at arcades when they cashed in their tickets.

Both my kids hated to throw anything away  – it all had some unique function or wonderful memory tied to it, but by this point in the process I was ready to be done. I did not want to sweat the little stuff.

In the meantime, they had sneakily wandered out of the room to get something and hadn’t come back.

I finally created a new bin for the McDonald’s toys and little stuff, some of them still in their wrappers. One of these days they’ll be worth a fortune, I’m sure. Just like Beanie Babies.

My son’s friend, Dylan, was obsessed with them. Every time a new Beanie Baby came out, which was about three times a day, he’d get his dad to drive them to the mall so they could buy it. They bought tag protectors to keep the tags from getting crumpled, because that made their “investment” more valuable.

I’d say, “How can something they’re selling to every kid in the universe and a whole lot of their parents be an investment? Something has to be rare before it’s valuable. They’re selling millions of these.” They wouldn’t listen because they kept hearing on the commercials (made by the Beanie Babies company) that they were collector’s items.

They never really played with them, although they’d gently lay their precious Beanie Babies on the floor and admire them one at a time and talk about how valuable they were, like Midas counting his gold. They also threw a substantial amount of money away on Pokemon cards for investment purposes as well.

Today when I was cleaning my daughter’s room, lots of good memories flooded into my head, so I guess it was worth it. I can’t even imagine what my daughter’s dorm room looks like, and thank goodness I don’t have to.