I come from a long line of hoarders. When I say a long line of hoarders, I’m talking about the females in my family. My mother and mother-in-law, both hoarders. Both my sisters are hoarders, and I’m sure a long line of grandma’s, great grandma’s and probably aunts in there somewhere too.

Growing up, I didn’t think too much about it, because we have this really big unfinished basement, so my mom could just hoarded a bunch of stuff down there. The rest of the house was relatively clear of the hoard. It all changed when my dad retired and they moved from that house to something smaller. My mom had to get rid of a lot of stuff, but she didn’t really. She just transferred the junk to different areas.

The older they got, the smaller the dwellings got, so my mom finally had to really pare down, because my dad didn’t want a storage unit. Through a year’s long process my wife has gone through the process of paring down her things from big house with big basement, to two houses full of junk to no houses and small apartment with storage unit, to now no storage unit. She likes to call it her “collector’s items”. I like to call it “junk”.

If it were up to me, or my brother’s, we would tell my mom that we have taken extra special custodial care of her items, and then carefully slid them into a really nice storage unit we called the garbage can.

Unfortunately, we have two sister’s and each of us have wives. They are all have this toxic trait called caring about other people’s feelings, so they have taken on this year’s long project of making sure my mother’s valuable “collector’s items” are taken care of in a special manner to honor the memory of her junk.

My wife has so graciously been volunteered to be the caretaker of the junk. Over the years, we’ve added dozens of yellow-with-black-lid Costco storage bins to our unfinished basement, garage, guest bedroom, closets, bed undercarriages, hallways, closets, under our sink, and in our showers. If there is a space, we’ve got a storage bin. We even sit on and have our TV on storage bins.

My wife then has to open a bin, experience near death experiences from the toxic dust inhalation, and then go through each bin with care. She then has to take a picture of each item, send them to my sister’s and sister in laws on a group chat from hell and allow each of them to claim items that they want to hoard in their basements until such time that they want to pass on their hoarding to their daughters.

It’s quite a magical experience. I get to hear my wife tell me the nightmare stories of my sister’s and sister-in-laws fighting over pieces of paper and plastic, and glass. They will claim that they had a memory of such and such and that if they don’t have it their life will have been in vain.

It’s pretty macabre, but I imaginr each of them on their death beds, about to say their last words to their loved ones and it ends up being something like, “I can’t leave yet. I still have all those nostalgic things in my basement that I need to take with me to the next life. I can’t leave without that Santa that my mom left me…” and them reaching out to clutch it and having to just allow that thing to go the grave with them.

That’s not to say I haven’t snagged a few things. For a way different reason. Not for nostalgia, or because something looks valuable, and I want to sell it. I like to do what I call spite claiming. If one of my sister’s want something so bad that they are foaming at the mouth, I will claim it. I will pull out my fake tears and say that mom said something to me when she was holding the item when she told me something that I will never forget, and then say I must have it.

I have all the power in my position. Not only because my wife is the one going through all the junk, but because I haven’t claimed hardly any of it. That way they can’t say that I don’t get it, because I’m being too greedy, and they can’t be jealous, because they have all claimed way too many things.

It makes my bitter heart soar, because I have the ultimate power in whether they get something or not.

I always save my saves for the biggest impact. If there is something they say they have to have, I claim it knowing they will be hurt forever. Then I will just throw it away later at my convenience.

I’m a spite claimer and I’m proud of it.

I’m confident that this post will never come back and bite me in the butt. I’ve never had any posts that I’ve done come back to haunt me before. Luckily my family stopped reading my blog a long time ago, except occasionally when I write something inflammatory about them. Then all of a sudden, their ears get lit on fire, and they can sense they are being libeled or defimationed about.

I’m 100% confident that none of them will read this one. They are too busy starting traditions of hoarding in their families to read some Brother’s Bitter Blog.

Thankfully, not that many people read my blog anymore. As they say on Twitter, if you have no followers, it’s like you are just shouting to any empty room. As a 51 year old man, my opinions are increasingly less relevant by the day, so this post is the equivalent of an old guy shouting at the neighborhood kids to get off my lawn.

But with Bitter Friday Giftures…

I come from a long line…

The hoarders best asset…

It means that things can be maintained…

While being a hoarder…

My sister’s asking…

In the meantime…

When going through each bin…

Until it comes to some things that they might want…

And just when it seems like things are civil again…

I like to enter the chat…

But only if it is something…

It’s just a good thing…

ARRRGGGHHHHH

Bitter Spite Claiming Ben