The Church Bazaar and Uncluttering

Back in 2008, when basements were full and Facebook Marketplace wasn’t a thing, the Church Bazaar was the battleground of clutter. Canadians used card tables, coffee urns, and community guilt to recycle the same items every year. This piece nails that pre-Kijiji, pre-Marie-Kondo period when “decluttering” meant just moving stuff somewhere else. Hence the birth of the Storage Industry! TL:DR

Church Bazaar and Uncluttering

In our ongoing efforts to declutter our lives, we are now donating many toys our children no longer play with to the Church Bazaar. This is an excellent opportunity to get rid of clutter, as long as you don’t go to the Bazaar and buy new crap to replace the crap you gave away. Hopefully, the number of “Groovy Girls” and “Polly Pockets” in our house will drop significantly.

Trying to get rid of crap by selling it yourself can be a money-making endeavour, but not for me. I tried to sell things on eBay and found out that you cannot sell old copies of Playboy (published after 1980). Who knew? If you wish to rummage through my garbage, my old collection will be in my recycle box next week,”all of this in the name of making more space (or just getting rid of crap).

What does a T-Rex have to do with all of this? It goes with the photo thematic premise this week.

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TL:DR

You can’t “declutter” when your instinct is to walk into a Church Bazaar and buy a fifty-cent breadmaker because it “still works.” Canadians are hoarders with good intentions. We call it recycling to hide the fact that we like owning crap.

Most of us don’t declutter; we rotate inventory. The same junk moves between basements every November under the banner of charity and coffee urns. It’s a holy ritual of uselessness, and I’ve yet to find salvation in a slightly used Crock-Pot.