You know you're a packrat if...

You find yourself hanging onto the following items as proof that you were once young (and really, really stupid) too:

1. a handful of blank postcards of Florida Manatees, because you once felt an affinity with the sea cow.
   
2. the explanatory note that accompanied a rune pendant, long since lost. It was the run called Eh, (which I think I know better as Ehwaz) meaning movement and symbolizing the horse and the sisterhood or brotherhood for horse and rider. "Movement is necessary for progress along one's path. Loyalty and trust are qualities needed for journeying together. Herb - ragwort, tree - ash/oak."
3. an empty envelope from an old bank statement with Al Purdy's phone number on it, because you once were you so casual with his phone number, you just wrote it on any old paper. (I also kept the address book that I later transferred his number into for safekeeping.)
4. the program from a production of Saint Joan at the 1993 Shaw Festival that was so bad, your teacher gave you all permission not to return to the theatre after intermission.
5. the program for Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, which set off a long obsession with Buddy's music and glasses and tragic story.
6. a copy of How to Pick Up Guys, which includes such good advice as how to handle a shy man: "Try to help a shy man get over his shyness by saying, 'I'm going to make this as easy for you as I can. I'd like to have steamy sex with you. If you'd like to have steamy sex with me too, blink once.'"
7. an envelope from the stud farm you worked at in high school, which contains the price notes of everyone who worked at the yearling sale. Your notes are circled as the winner because you guessed $131,420 and the actual total was $120,900. You want to keep this envelope because you had totally forgotten there was even a pool, let alone that you won. I guess that memory got wiped out by the shit that came afterward. I wonder how much you won?
8. A handwritten copy of a poem you wrote, which you were planning to submit to a magazine but never did:
   
   

   Winter Scene
   We trekked out
   with our toboggans
   and a pipe T*** had bought in Montreal.
   To the top of the hill
   and the moon,
   she looked down
   a ring of light
   surrounded her in the clouds.
   And L**** held it for me
   tight in my teeth
   as I sucked the flame
   down.
   The pipe we shared,
   finally lit
   and then we slid
   down the hill laughing
   back into the world.
   A ring of girls
   around of a ring of red
   with a ring of smoke above
   and a ring of moonlight too
   reflecting in the white
   of snow.

9. correspondence with your benchmate from biology, which goes something along the lines of:
   
   me: Maybe I"ll say hi to him today. If I get the chance. I wonder if he knows i'm interested in him.
   
   friend: If you would do the eyebrow thing he would know!
   
   me: I did it at lunch. And I think he saw but it was quite a distance so maybe he wasn't even looking at me but I think he was.
   
   friend: Do it! (ha ha) in the hall right at him (eye contact)
   
   me: I will. But sometimes it's hard to position myself properly and sometimes he doesn't look at me. But I'm worried that if I stare at him too much, I'll stop watching where I'm going and trip right in front of him and totally embarrass myself.
   
   [there's a little diagram here, complete with thought bubbles and everything]
   
   me: I look like shit today. These jeans make me look like that grade 9 - she always wears tight jeans that totally flatten her ass.
   
   friend: Those jeans look really good. Nice butt.
   
   
10. And finally, a sign you were planning (please please please let you not have actually done it) to hang on your horse's door at the boarding stable to impress the guy you were crushing on. This one's really embarrassing. It has a typed out copy of a really bad poem that you wrote after you watched Black Robe, your horse's name in marker, and underneath, to show your worldliness, I guess: "Un tres bon cheval. Un muy bien cavalla." Of course, that boy did become your first love, so you must not have actually posted it. Phew.


Wow, and just like that, I don't really need to keep any of these.