Junk You Don't Need

You know. You bought it anyway. Here it is in order.

Entries
10
Category
Stuff
Updated
  1. A closet shelf piled with creased, glossy gift bags and crumpled tissue paper, a blank tag dangling from one handle.

    10. Gift Bags You Saved

    A closet shelf of creased gift bags and reused tissue, saved to give again. You use one a year. It goes back to the person who gave it to you, with their name still on the tag.

  2. A neatly made bed buried under seven plump decorative pillows, a second pile of the same pillows on the floor.

    09. Decorative Throw Pillows

    Seven of them on a bed for one person. Every night they go on the floor. Every morning they go back on the bed, in an arrangement. They do nothing. Nobody sees them but you, and you see them as a chore.

  3. A home treadmill in a spare room with jeans and sweaters draped over its handrails and a laundry basket on the belt.

    08. The Treadmill That Holds Laundry

    Bought in January with real conviction. By March it's the most expensive drying rack in the house, a pair of jeans on each handrail. Selling it would mean admitting it, so it holds sweaters instead.

  4. A wicker basket under a bathroom sink overflowing with tiny unlabeled shampoo bottles and wrapped soaps.

    07. Hotel Toiletries

    Tiny shampoos, tiny lotions, a shower cap, a sewing kit. You took them because you paid for them, presumably. They sit in a basket under the sink for guests, who bring their own.

  5. A three-lobed fidget spinner lying still on a desk, a blur of motion lines faintly behind it like a memory.

    06. Fidget Spinner

    In 2017 they were everywhere, at gas station counters and in confiscation bins. They spin. That is the whole thing. Most are now in drawers, bearings gritty, waiting for the second craze.

  6. A crowded cabinet shelf of mismatched mugs in odd shapes, one used mug set apart on the counter.

    05. Novelty Mugs

    World's Okayest Dad, a mug shaped like a camera lens, one from a 5K you walked. Shelves of them. You use the same two every day. The rest hold pens that don't work.

  7. A dozen plain canvas tote bags stuffed inside one another on a hallway hook, sagging under their own weight.

    04. Tote Bags

    The bookstore tote, the museum tote, the grocery tote you bought when you forgot the other totes. You own more than a dozen, and you still leave the store with everything balanced in your arms.

  8. A curved yellow plastic slicing grid resting on a cutting board next to a banana curving the opposite way.

    03. A Banana Slicer

    A curved plastic grid for cutting a banana into coins, a job a butter knife does in seconds. It only works on bananas that curve its way. It lives in the utensil drawer and does not fit in the dishwasher basket.

  9. A stiff, boxy plain gray T-shirt folded at the bottom of a dresser drawer, still creased from its packaging.

    02. The Free Conference T-Shirt

    Boxy, a size too big, a sponsor printed across the back. You took it because it was free, and it has been in a dresser drawer ever since, being free. It will become a painting shirt, then a rag, then somehow still be around.

  10. A small toaster on a store counter beside a thick folded warranty pamphlet and a long curled receipt.

    01. The Extended Warranty on a $30 Thing

    The cashier offers two years of protection on your toaster for eleven dollars. You don't want it, but saying no feels like tempting fate. The paperwork goes in a drawer. The toaster outlives the warranty out of spite.

Honorable mentions

  • A sheet of bubble wrap on a desk with a few bubbles popped in a neat row, a phone face down beside it.

    Bubble Wrap

    You don't need it. You keep a sheet anyway, folded in a closet, for shipping something someday. Really it's for popping, one bubble at a time, while on hold. Of all the junk, it's the only kind that's fun.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A smooth gray stone nestled in straw inside a small cardboard carrier box with air holes punched in the sides.

    Pet Rock

    Gary Dahl · 1975

    Gary Dahl sold nearly 1.5 million of them in 1975 for just under $4 each, in a carrier box with straw bedding and a training manual. It was a rock. People knew. The fad lasted about six months, and nothing has topped it since.

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