A Challenge To All Packrats

[cabinetman]

I'm a packrat. I should join PA (Packrats Anonymous), if there is such a group. Really, I have trouble throwing stuff away. It's one of those things that I say to myself...I may need that.

But this challenge is for how long an item is saved. Believe it or not, I have some hardwood (kept it around) for about 30 years. I just don't have the heart to throw away. Also not the right project for inclusion.
But, back to the challenge...look what I still have:
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[LCHIEN]

you have you're grandfather's baby shoes?

[Bruce Cohen]

Hey Cab,

By any chance are you related to my wife, she saves drink cups from our vacations as mementos.

Bruce

[pelligrini]

Is this challenge just limited to leathergoods?

I've got a leather vest and chaps that I wore all the time when I was 5-6, (35yrs ago). I believe they were my dad's when he was my age.

[cabinetman]

Hey Cab,

By any chance are you related to my wife, she saves drink cups from our vacations as mementos.

Bruce

Ooooh, that's so sentimental.
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[rnelson0]

But this challenge is for how long an item is saved.

I am so sure my father has you beat that I'd put money on it. For lack of specific evidence as he is some 8 hour drive away, I will tell a story of a competition my brother and I have. My mother is ill and my father is her care-giver. He has learned to do a lot of things to maintain the home that my mother used to...except for keeping things up to date. So, whenever we go home, we help my dad clean up stuff. The scariest was cleaning out the fridge. We found some items at the bottom with expiration dates 5 years old! Boy, that fridge never smelled nicer than when we were done. Anyway, we keep a marker board of the oldest expiration dates we can find. So far, the record is 1992 (found in 2007) for a box of cookies or something.

There are other gems, but my favorite is the old miniature coke bottle that apparently still had some drink left in it. A mouse crawled in, drank the coke, died, and only his bones were left. Coke. Life tastes good.

[LinuxRandal]

What is the challenge?

I read this and walked over and pulled out some samples that I kept, and grabbed my great grandfathers, 1949 tax return (since it is almost April).

[ironhat]

Is this challenge just limited to leathergoods?

I've got a leather vest and chaps that I wore all the time when I was 5-6, (35yrs ago). I believe they were my dad's when he was my age.

Ya know, at first I was thinkin'... Oh, never mind. was just glad to see the reference to age 5-6 in there.