Cindy's Clutter Solutions

"How about shelves of VHS tapes. Nobody uses VHS anymore. Equipment that still accommodates those probably comes with a picture of a Victor gramophone and a dog. Three "Bridges of Madison County" and two "King Kong" tapes I really don't need anymore. But throw them out? Can't. Take the effort to convert them to DVDs, which by that time the DVDs will get reconverted to some other initials? No. Besides, having seen them in movie theaters, I never watched those VHSes in the first place, so why would I watch their DVDs? But throw them out? What're you, crazy?"

'Throw away' lines to keep

By CINDY ADAMS

New York Post

Last Updated: 3:04 AM, January 24, 2010

Posted: 12:51 AM, January 24, 2010

Clutter. How to get rid of clutter that's taking all your space, all your attention, all your time. One friend found a way: "I divorced him."<p> </p><br> For those who've already served loyally and well and are divorced from even the thought of ever marrying again, you need another way. Moving won't help because a hard-core clutterer will just pack up the junk and schlep it along.<p> </p><br> Forget the "in case" stuff you can't throw out. In case you lose five pounds and fit into that again. In case that style with the big shoulder pads ever comes back. In case it doesn't and you just remove those shoulder pads. In my case, the shoulder pads<p> </p><br>didcome back and my closet was so cluttered, I couldn't locate the jackets that had them.<p> </p><br> How about shelves of VHS tapes. Nobody uses VHS anymore. Equipment that still accommodates those probably comes with a picture of a Victor gramophone and a dog. Three "Bridges of Madison County" and two "King Kong" tapes I really don't need anymore. But throw them out? Can't. Take the effort to convert them to DVDs, which by that time the DVDs will get reconverted to some other initials? No. Besides, having seen them in movie theaters, I never watched those VHSes in the first place, so why would I watch their DVDs? But throw them out? What're you, crazy?<p> </p><br> For some Veteran of Foreign Wars donation, a CPA I know received a flag. No little pennant or something to stick on your desk. A large-sized outdoor American flag. She has a small one-bedroom apartment. No back yard, front yard, patio, roof or terrace. Not even a window box. So what to do with it? You cannot just discard an American flag. Can't stick it in any trash bin marked "plastic" or "papers." There's rules for its removal. She can't bury it. She has no ground anywhere. So rolled up in her closet stands an American flag the size a college would fly because she doesn't know where to put it.<p> </p><br> Take the photos. Your once-in-a-lifetime vacation. You schlep along the newest camera. You snap 8 million pictures.<p> </p><br>Annie Leibovitzdoesn't take so many. Shots of you on a horse, off the horse, in the pool, out of the pool, by the horse near the pool. Being tech-savvy modern, you go paperless. Digital. You buy special software. Previously you'd dump the film somewhere to be developed, fetch it eventually, stick it in an album and forget it the rest of your life. Now what? We're talking labor-intensive. You have to transfer it, and then what do you do with all these dumb images nobody wants to see? Stick them where?<p> </p><br> Magazines. I still have copies of Life, Look, Pic, Saturday Evening Post and a dog-eared 1949 Movieplay featuring<p> </p><br>Doris Dayon the cover smiling wide enough to satisfy her throat doctor. So why do I save them? Not because I'm hot to learn "How Movie Star Doris Day Cooks For Her Man" but because I intended to reread certain helpful pieces. So did I ever? Of course not. Until this column, I didn't even recall I had them. I also have a huge pile of yellowed, musty, dusty articles torn from these magazines. Like "How to Remove an Ink Stain From Your Pink Blouse." I've since learned an even better way. Throw out the pink blouse.<p> </p><br> Shopping bags. The Mosler company might create a safe that houses shopping bags. God forbid a female person should give up a shopping bag. My housekeeper could spend half an hour finding a Waldbaum's job rather than relinquish one of our Tiffanys. People give me things I don't want. I throw out these gifts. I keep the shopping bags. What is the psychological reason women can't toss out shopping bags? I still have two from Bonwit Teller. If Bonwit ever comes back, boy am I ready!<p> </p><br> There's the shoe situation. Pointy-toed, round-toed, open-toed. Many out of style but we keep them. They'll go with Something. A couple don't even fit. They're tight. But they were $1,000, on sale for $150. Get rid of them? Please. A few actually hurt but the thought is, we can maybe get through one evening wearing them. We'll pick those for a no-walking-no-standing event. Like taking the car to a sit-down dinner. How bad could the pain be?<p> </p><br> Anther major problem is stuff with a history. Like my sweater from Peru. Handmade, hand-knit, hand-whatever'd. Black with colorful hand-embroidered flowers. It reprises my experience on the Inca Trail and how exciting it was to buy this gorgeous, local-made, alpaca sweater in Lima. However, the thing itches. It brings up memories but it also brings up welts. My trip was three years ago. I've worn that sweater once. On my Sunday morning "Today in New York" segment. It looked stunning. A friend saw it. Adored it. Wanted it. To give it to her made me happy because this way at least I wasn't throwing the thing out. Two days later she sent it back. "It itches," she said.<p> </p><br> The mail. There's mail to be answered, mail to be sent, mail to be thrown out, mail to be signed, mail to be stamped, mail to be RSVP'd, bills to be paid, bills to be argued, wedding announcements to keep so you can send a gift, invitations to keep so you know the address of where you're going. And where to shove all this paper? Maybe in the shoes?<p> </p><br>

Cindy Adams