Some people collect keychains. Some people collect marbles. Or dolls. Or action figures. Or bobbleheads. Or shells.
I don't collect anything. Well, not intentionally, anyway.
It's not as though I've ever identified something as a potential collectible - the shot glass, say - and told myself that I would make it my mission to amass the world's greatest number of jiggers. I mean, what would you do with them anyway? Line them up on your windowsills, your book shelves, your mantels and your coffee tables? I think not. But that's not the case when it comes to, oh, magazines.
Let's just say I have a handful.
Let's just say that when I go through the supermarket checkout, I can seldom
resist the inclination to toss one in my buggy.
The result, I must admit, is that I have something of a collection. They're on the bedside table. They're in baskets in the bathroom. They're in stacks on the kitchen counter.
"Listen," my husband will say periodically, "do you really need all these magazines? I mean, why can't you toss them after they've been read?" "Can't do that," I'll tell him. "Some have recipes I'd like to save. Or decorating tips I'd like to try. Or articles that were super inspiring."
In truth, this isn't as easy as it sounds. Even if I wanted to make that mac and cheese I once found in Canadian Living, it would take me 15 days to find it, at which point I'd probably be hankering after meat loaf.
In any case, magazines are a practical thing to collect. It makes much more sense to collect magazines than it does to collect rocks, or marbles or fridge magnets. After all, collect enough fridge magnets and
you'd eventually also have to collect fridges - and who has the space for that? And toy cars? Nothing useful about that, as far as I can see. You can look at them, and you can touch them, but they have nothing to share in the way of Five-Day Weight-Loss Solutions or Easiest-Ever Easter Meals. You know, like magazines do.
I get the husband's point, however. At the rate I'm going, the whole of the kitchen island may one day be stacked with magazines, and that won't work in our favour, given that we occasionally need the space to do things. Like cook, for instance.
This, then, will likely become Retirement Mission 410.
Someday down the road, after I've logged off at work once and for all and have a bit of time on my hands, I'll attend to the magazines. I'll go through them, one by one, clip the stuff I want to save, and give the rest to recycling.
Won't work if I keep collecting them, though. I may reconsider those magnets.
