The poor guy

We had a swap meet today.  Everybody took things that they didn’t need and then took a look to see if they wanted anything.

One couple has a child who is less than a year old.  He’s a mild mannered guy who’s earning his masters and she is a bit of a romantic.  I entered the room to hear  “But she won’t be old enough to use it for years.  We’ll have moved 5 times by then.”  I looked and there was a cute chair-desk that looked perfect for a first grader.  She replied as if it was obvious: “yes, but there’s a place for it in the closet.”  I knew he was absolutely right.  I also knew that he was toast.  Later I walked in and the desk had been removed to the middle of a large pile of nice things in the corner of the gym.  I imagine that the desk is already in the closet.

I think he was right to let her have her way.  Still, I think that things present a neat little trap.  Here’s the trap: when we look at a thing and ask “Do I want it?” we tend to think of the merits of the thing and ignore the costs of ownership.  The thing takes up space.  It requires cognitive space.  It weighs you down, making it harder to move.  It’s a bizarre fact: a lot of individually nice things put together make a mess.