Like many people I’m glued to the television when Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive are on. Heck, I’m one of the people who leaps up from loving embrace of Mr Couch and start cleaning like a mad thing seconds after the show starts. And I can’t be the only person who wonders just how much stuff Savers, Goodwill and the Salvation Army gets after a Hoarders or Hoarding: Buried Alive marathon. And I’ve been in a hoarder house and wondered how anyone could live like that. Answer: it’s not easy and frustrating as all get out.
So when I’m at the library (I know, big surprise, Gwendy at a library, alert the media) and see a display saying that Randy O. Frost, author of Stuff: Complusive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things and Buried in Treasures: Help For Complusive Acquiring, Saving and Hoarding is going to be coming to MY LIBRARY, in person that I’m going to be there. And even though I was tired little zombie, on the great day I was at the library. And even got to chat briefly with man himself before the lecture.
Now before I go into how awesome the lecture was, let me vent a little. The library is awesome. The event coordinator is awesome. Randy O. Frost was awesome. The lady sitting next to me chomping on the free cookies and with the ringing cellphone and gulp gulp gulp gulp gulping free coffee constantly? Not so awesome. If body language was a weapon I would be serving 25 to life right this second. And don’t go on about changing my seat because that lecture was crowded. Rant over, thanks for letting me vent.
Dr Frost had the audience enthralled from his opening statements to his readings from Stuff: Complusive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things right to his closing statements. People were lining up to speak to him after the lecture. And people were very open about their own issues with things. Using the case study of a woman who was his guide to hoarders, Dr Frost discussed the how things are seen differently by hoarders. He also debated commonly held beliefs about hoarders such as “Depression era parents” or “hoarders always have OCD”. And yes, he even discussed the recent spate of reality shows about hoarding and the good and bad of such shows.
Read Dr Frost’s research, attend a lecture or glance through his books. You’ll never look at your belongings the same way again whether you loathe clutter or can’t bear to part with things.
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