Scary Potters

Hi! Welcome back to NeighborGoodies! We missed you! Did you miss us? Of course you did!

Anyway, you’ll be happy to note that the Big Blue Table is back, and better than ever! While the Laundry Room was off-limits, someone in the building apparently decided to make a huge life change, likely because they were tired of not being able to throw their stuff onto the table.

I found this article posted above the NeighborGoodies Table in the Laundry Room...


It’s about a movement called “The 100 Thing Challenge” that encourages you to purge the clutter from your life, basically by forcing you to get rid of all but 100 items. Got a car? Then you only have 99 things left to go. Pair of glasses? 98.

According to the article, some people are more lenient with the rules. One woman counts all of her shoes as one possession, but others take it to a disturbing degree: A man interviewed for the article (who has a blog here) is down to his final few possessions, one of which is a spork, because he can’t handle the clutter of having a separate spoon and fork.

The end result is supposed to be cleansing and freeing, but all that pressure of counting each and every item is disturbingly OCD as far as I’m concerned… especially considering the fact that my bedroom alone probably houses close to ten thousand items. I certainly couldn’t live this minimalist lifestyle. I think I use close to 50 things while I’m on the toilet in the morning (Don’t ask.) Coupled with the dozens of bottles of booze littering the kitchen for my nightly refreshment, I’m down to approximately eight slots left for the barest of essentials: Pillow, Mattress, Keys (three), Pants, Tivo and Bowl of cereal.

If I chose this lifestyle, I’d be a shirtless, shoeless man with a Tivo attached to nothing, sneaking cereal into the apartment by filling the bowls up one at a time in the hallway, because bringing a box inside of the apartment would mean I am up to 101 items.

I suspect that whoever posted this article is in the early stages of their own cleanse, as evidenced by this blue bin beneath the NeighborGoodies Table (sitting atop the new tiled floor!)

Inside of this bin is dozens of objects, like these books:

"All About Craps" and "Debt Free by 30" seem as though they shouldn't be able to exist in the same household. Unless the Debt-Free book's advice is to go gamble the amount of your student loans in Vegas... but that system doesn't work--believe me, I've tried.

There are dozens of other books in the bin...
...along with some insect killer:
...which, I assume, you'll be using with your home-made plant potters:


I imagine that somewhere in this bin, there was (or still is) a book on pottery. I removed these items from the bin in order to get a closer look:


These hand-crafted/hand painted potters go lovely with almost any decor, assuming, of course, that you are a hippie and that you don't live in Luxury in the Hollywood Hills. There's also this set of plates...

...which look as though they were handmade by Ginger and Mary Ann while stranded on Gilligan's Island.

Hmmm... I wonder if Tina Louise lives in my building... and if she is taking the 100 Thing Challenge. I briefly considered taking this challenge myself, but I believe the Big Blue Table would be crushed under the weight of all my crap. But, I'm also curious to know if you, Loyal NeighborGoodies Enthusiasts, would be able to accept such a challenge--for clearly, I am incapable of doing so.