Jeepers, We’re Keepers | Only In New England

It’s spring — time to clean house, jettison junk, and dispense with debris. But that isn’t easy for New Englanders, most of whom seem to be afflicted with a disease known as clutteropathy. Researchers have identified six different strains of this disorder.   ACCUMULITIS Also known as “usefulness delusion disorder” (UDDER), this sickness is identified with the statement “I might need this someday.” People with accumulitis won’t throw out old newspapers in case they need to start a fire, even if they haven’t owned a woodstove in 20 years. The opposite condition, tossitosis, is a tendency to discard old lamp parts, batteries, and mismatched gloves simply because they have no real value—if you can imagine. SENTIMENTSIA This is the tendency to keep things that remind one of treasured memories: the junk car you had in high school, the ticket stub from the drive-in theatre you went to on a date 30 years ago, the marriage certificate that resulted from that, and the two marriage certificates after that. Of course, some items have enduring significance: Grandma’s wedding ring, Grandma’s hand-crocheted potholders, Grandma’s dentures. New Englanders may be more prone to sentimentsia because we live in such an old part of the country; people from Malibu are notoriously unsentimental. And warmer. COLLECTOMANIA This classic condition involves an obsession with collecting items related to a particular theme. Common examples of the malady include “Red Sox memorabilism,” “Old Man of the Mountain spotted fever,” and “lighthouse tchotchketiasis.” Sometimes, trying to find something everyone else isn’t collecting, people with this condition may venture into truly bizarre territory, such as collect­ing ketchup packets from around the world. In extreme cases, a collection takes over and sufferers have to move out of their house and turn it into the “Beer Coaster Museum.” HYPERCRAFTIA Symptoms of this condition are shelves and closets overflowing with ribbon, glitter, and yarn. Victims have a hard time throwing out even ordinary things, since just about anything can be used in crafts, including coffee cans, margarine tubs, and dryer lint. Teachers and Scout leaders are especially susceptible to this ailment, which seems to peak with the onset of holiday fairs and craft shows. Medical researchers point to an upsurge in hypercraftia starting in 2010, with the launch of Pinterest. ANTIQUITOSIS Genetically predisposed to dislike change, New Englanders may keep things as a way of holding on to the past. Or it may be because they’ve held on to something for so long that they can’t throw it out now; somehow, the passage of time seems to imbue objects with value. While that may be true of the Chippendale desk your great-aunt left you, that motheaten towel you borrowed from the Park Plaza Hotel in 1954 can probably go. CHRONIC PAPERTONIA In our grandparents’ day, paper was precious and every scrap was used for notes, grocery lists, or insulation. Unfortunately, our ancestors passed the paper-saving gene along to us, which explains why we keep every issue of the Northeast Bovine Gazette in case we need to refer to that article on fog fever again. People with chronic papertonia often can’t distinguish important paper—like birth records and stock certificates—from fast-food receipts, old instruction manuals, and the insurance policy for that beloved 1953 Nash Rambler. Variants of paper­tonia include “magazine mag­netosis” and “catalogue surplus disorder.”

PRINT