It’s one of the great unsolved mysteries of life you know. Learned people have spent years and enormous sums in Government grants researching the phenomenon. Actually that last bit might not be exactly true but you can bet that some university, somewhere in the USA, will have such research in progress! What is this phenomenon, this unsolved mystery?
It’s clutter, or rather the speed with which clutter accumulates in human dwelling places. If mankind could only isolate the true cause of the phenomenon we’d be on the way to discovering how to prevent it in the first place. As it is, all we can do is try to keep up with it by means of periodic clear-outs, which is where the car boot sale can help.
The phenomenon is not new by any means. I’m quite old now and I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have clutter and I’m sure it goes back very much farther than that. In fact I suspect the Romans of introducing it to these shores after 55BC. They would have arrived bringing chariot loads of clutter with them and before long it would have spread to the native population like a disease.
Have you noticed that when you move house you get rid of most of the clutter that has accumulated since your last move, but nine times out of ten you take with you some stuff that you haven’t used in ages but can’t bear to get rid of?
Therein lies the possible cause of the problem. It would have started when you first moved out from your parents’ home to live independently. Just one or two items that might come in handy one day, that’s all it takes and you’re doomed! From then on, each time you move you do the same thing only the number of items grows each time. These are the seeds from which the next lot of clutter grows.
Of course, it’s all very well saying that our own actions may be the possible cause of the phenomenon but finding the cause of the cause, that’s what baffles even modern science. It seems to be something in the human psyche and maybe one day, years and millions of pounds down the line scientists may find the answer, but don’t hold your breath!
Meanwhile, the car boot sale is one the more recent additions to our armoury of weapons to combat the dreaded clutter and it’s a very effective one when properly deployed. The car boot sale has a long and distinguished lineage as we’ve explored before. I reckon those Romans probably held Chariot Sales up and down the country.
Whether they did or not, we now have the car boot sale to help us de-clutter our homes and we should use them to the full. What better way can there be to rid yourself of unused items than to sell them on to other people for money? Buying at car boot sales as well as selling may mean you end up with just as much clutter as you started with so be careful to buy only what you can actually use or to stock your car boot for the next sale when you’ve sold all your original stuff.
In car boot sales have we finally found the answer to the clutter problem? Maybe, maybe not, maybe all we’re doing is moving the clutter around to different people, spreading the disease as it were. But hey! Who cares anyway? It’s great fun doing it and doesn’t actually harm anyone and it just might save someone from serious injury or worse. Remember the reports quite recently of the chap who was crushed in his bed by 25 years or more worth of yachting magazines stored in his loft when the ceiling collapsed under the weight.
The moral of that story surely is, don’t let things like that keep accumulating until they bury you. Get them to a car boot sale in good time and make some money from them. You can always start collecting again!
Article provided by freelance copywriter, Pete Hopper of Write for You
