I had to remove my sunglasses in order to give the lady a second look. Upon closer inspection — because I just had to get closer — what looked like a couple of extra pounds on her belly turned out to be plastic bags; a ton of them bunched up inside her purple windbreaker jacket. At least I think they were bags.
Well, whatever it was, it was not fat.
As she happily strolled along smoking a cigarette, I began to wonder what could have possibly compelled this woman to stuff plastic bags — they really looked like plastic bags — into her windbreaker. The quick justification that jumped into my mind was that the woman was probably insane.
Later that day, as I walked into my room and noticed all of my old magazines — some laying around and some neatly stacked into milk crates — I remembered the lady with the plastic bags in her jacket.
Who was I to judge a lady that collected plastic bags? In essence, the lady and I were one in the same. Both of us collected something that brought so much happiness to our lives that we just had to hold on to them.
Then I Googled the word “hoarding.”
What I found freaked me out. Living rooms filled with so much crap that you wondered how any human being could live under such conditions. Could the lady with the windbreaker and I be considered hoarders?
My self-serving excuse has always been that I “collect” magazines because, as a journalist, I never know when I will need to reference the articles. But will I really need to go back and use the Rolling Stone magazine that features a naked Christina Aguilera hugging an electric guitar? Probably not.
A&E’s “Hoarders” Web site, the show that follows people dealing with obsessive hoarding, gives links to various treatment centers one can access for help. Now, I doubt my little magazine collecting hobby qualifies me as an obsessive hoarder, but there are indeed many people out there with this pathological condition.
The next time you visit a family member’s house, or your friend’s apartment, where the hallway to the restroom is covered with too much junk, it is possible that obsessive hoarding is poking its head up. Instead of labeling them insane, like I did with the plastic bag lady, run over to the “Hoarders” Web site and find out how you can help.
Or whatever.
— Julio Salgado