My dust collection started here.
If you’ve ever been the least bit obsessed about anything and felt like kind of a tool for liking something too much, just enter the name of that thing into Google and you can find a vast array of people around the world that are WAY more of a tool than you. When I was a kid, I LOVED Transformers. The cartoons, the animated movie, and of course the toys. But then there was a short period of time (those years when I pretended that I was all grown up) when I lost contact with the world of Transformers. But then the internet was invented, or at least became a thing around 1995. A slow thing, but it was a thing. When I took an actual class that year about how to use the World Wide Web(no kids, I didn’t grow up with the WWW), I learned you could search for anything. I decided to type up Transformers. Lo and behold, I learned that I was not even close to the most obsessed person in the world about Transformers. People had massive collections of unopened Transformers, had all the old episodes on VHS and had entire wings of their houses taken up by every little comic, toy and literature about them. These are the real collectors(nerds).
You know what my favorite collection is? Dust. On windows, on walls, in closets. Some people just like to sweep it away because they think it is annoying, but I have a display case of all my favorite dust particles. Some things naturally collect dust, but I like to buy things I can’t or don’t use so I can collect the most valuable dust particles. Here are some of the favorites from my dust collection.
Only good use of exercise equipment besides collecting dust.
Exercise Equipment – I love to buy exercise equipment, not only to have it take up more space in our house, but this particular type of dust is some of my favorite. It has a hint of desperation, as well as good intentions sprinkled within that gives it that dull residewy glean. The dust is especially great when I use it for a couple of weeks, then start using it as a clothing hanger and as a flat, dry surface for my popcorn with butter flavoring and for catching my cupcake crumbs.
Like these but way more hideous.
Red and Orange Shoes – When I was 7 years old, my mom brought me to the store to get some new shoes and I was so excited because I mean shoes right? They protect your feet from getting tetanus and gangrene and stuff. I couldn’t find a pair I liked and that fit, so she said, “Let’s not get any this time and we can come back another time.” but that didn’t fly with me. If I didn’t get them now, I would never get another pair, so I had to find something. I rummaged through the crappy selection of my foot size again and found pretty much the only thing that wasn’t a formal pair of shoes. It was a pair of orange AND red sneakers and I was determined to buy them no matter how little I wanted to be seen in public with them. I made my mom buy them for me, and proceeded to wear them exactly three times. The red orange dust that came from those shoes are the rarest of rare.
Remember this thing?
Google+, MySpace, Friendster – I love to rummage around the internet and finding the relics of the early days. Remember that website MySpace? Remember that wanna be Facebook Google+? These one hit and no hit wonders are still out there in the corners of a cyber closet collecting cyber dust. I love to go in there swipe my mouse over them and collect a little 010110110 dust from them and add them to my cyber collection.
Old Posts – I’ve got a lot of these lying around. Great ideas, Good ideas, bad ideas, and non fully realized ideas are strewn throughout my dashboard. Some little, some big and some that time forgot. A post started about the 2012 elections, or that one about the Sochii Winter Olympics, or that great idea I had about Rap Battles, or The Seven Bitter Wonders of the World, or Turning Gold into Junk, or Bitter Puppets, or the Bentalist. There is some great specks coming from that internet history .
Some of the best dust came from these.
My VHS Collection – There are some old fake slam dunks off the trampoline with really bad editing VHS’s, there are the taping of Transformers over my sister’s wedding VHS’s, that secret one that sucked me into the TV tape that I don’t want to talk about…. Then there is the classic Back to the Future trilogy in its original low quality picture that you just can’t get on BluRays these days. A speck of dust from them is worth a pretty penny these days. And by pretty, I mean, well even a haypenny will do.
My Resume – Look at how it hasn’t changed since 2005…Look at how in 2005, people actually sometimes required it be printed on an actual 50 weight piece of paper. Look at how the dust makes the paper turn just a slight bit of yellow and gives it the scent of lavender that Elle Wood’s used in Legally Blonde.
If you let it sit long enough it starts smelling like Elle Woods resumes.
Someday when I get old and die you might be scrolling through Ebay and get lucky enough to see a dust collection for sale. Most certainly you will see one of my kids screen names under that dust collection. Don’t laugh too hard at them for even thinking there might be a chance that someone might want to buy it. There is still a shred of hope that they might get the recessive gene and not be bitter. Just remember that you heard about that collection here first.
ARRRGGGGHHHHHH
Bitter Dust Collector Ben
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I too am a collector of dust, but my preferred item to collect it on is candles. That way, when you finally light them, you have to wait for the smell of burning skin and hair to dissipate before you can enjoy whatever scent it’s supposed to be. You should try it!
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Ah the smell of burning flesh. Nothing better during the holidays than that kind of smell.
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If you want to avoid a bitter dust collection, collect liquor: It never collects dust.
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It would in my house, cause I don’t drink.
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In that case, collect empty liquor bottles. It will make those who don’t drink bitter (for not drinking) and those who do drink bitter (because the bottles are empty).
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Very true. Thanks for you curmudgeonly advice.
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Why is it that we collect these things in the first place? Is it that hard to let go of the past? I have 2 pairs of shoes that look almost exactly the same that lie in shoe boxes in my closet. They’ve been there for over 10 years. My excuse for keeping them is that either pair will go with what I’d wear to a funeral. How morbid can I get?
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It’s so we can start dust collecting. The best dust comes from the things we thought we needed.
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Great idea for a post and beautifully executed. Us hoarders would like to live many more lives than we’re allowed, I’m sure. I remember my Mum had a knitting machine, an exercise bike, several shelf systems, a collection of garden implements, a chemistry set and much else … all of them used once and stashed away.
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Those are the best kind of dust collections. The ones that are used once then hidden away for dust collecting.
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Ha ha! Now I know why my husband never throws away a comic or magazine! We have museum quality dust in our house, let me know if you need any more!
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Yep, I just here to deliver the information so you know why people collect stuff.
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We seem to be collecting very similar dust collections.
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Yeah, it sounds like it. What kind of things does Choppy collect.
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Ben I love your bitter posts. Have a bitter night.
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I’ll make sure to continue with more then. But that is a lot of work, and that makes me bitter. So I’ll have something to post about.
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Sounds like you have an excellent collection. Have you had your dust collection appraised? Any idea what it’s worth?
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I think it worth a dull penny. If someone offered a pretty penny I would have to give them change.
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I have noticed the Bitter Ben dust flowing down the screen this month, but I didn’t realize how valuable it was. Now I’m bitter that I didn’t try to save some of it. J.
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I just noticed that too. I think it is leftover from all the dust that was collecting on my posts.
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I like Transformers a lot, but I was also shocked to see how much more other people like Transformers. I don’t know if I actually care about any pop culture item enough to make an entire website dedicated to it.
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Yeah, it was pretty hard to see the obsession, uh I mean dedication that people had for it. Made me feel kind of inadequate as a fan.
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You may be depressed to know that I don’t have much that collects dust around my house. I mean, why would I do that when my dust collections would be so easily overshadowed by my children’s school project dust collection, my husband’s magazine dust collection, and my son’s (very expensive I might add) Skylander’s dust collection.
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Oh man, you have no idea how depressed I am right now to hear that. I’m glad your family stepped up to fill in your dust collection void.
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I always try to bring bitter positivity…or is that just negativity by another name?
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Bitter positivity sounds like bittersweet to me. UGgghhh.
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Has there been anything more useless than Google +, for all the data mining and other shady crap Google does you would have think they would have rolled out a better product than that!
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I think the white crayon has been more useless but not on as epic a scale as Google +.
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