I understand pack rats. Not hoarders, though. Hoarders, from what I understand, don’t clean and never throw anything out. Their piles of trash reach their ceilings and spill out their windows. Pack rats, however, are people who don’t throw their belongings out for fear they’ll need them someday. Or that’s my definition. I make stuff up to suit my purposes.

Anyway, it’s the fashion nowadays to talk about purging your home of everything that doesn’t “bring you joy.” What a crock. Toilet paper doesn’t bring me joy but I can’t throw it all out. They don’t print Sears catalogs anymore.

Before the woman who wrote about joyful decluttering became popular, though, fashion magazines had always been encouraging people to get rid of clothes that hadn’t been worn for more than a year.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Let’s say you haven’t worn your favorite (or only) evening gown for over a year because you didn’t have any balls, or Italian weddings, to attend. According to the fashion advisors, you should donate it, pronto. However, you just know that you will have barely closed your car door after dropping off the gown when an invitation will arrive to a black-tie event, or a costume party. What do you do then? Go to the charity shop and buy it back?

And are they also suggesting that men should get rid of their tuxedos if they haven’t been worn in 366 days? That’s crazy talk, as my sister would say. Fashion experts need to be held accountable for their clever advice. If they make me throw out an expensive item that I will need in two years, then they should replace it.

“Dear [insert fashion magazine name] , I took your advice and threw out my husband’s wetsuit. Now he needs it. Please send me one in size XL, and include the flipper-thingies in size 11. Many thanks.”

Also, other items that have been shoved to the back of the closet might be unfashionable now, but fashion cycles are speeding up and they could be back in style in two years, or a year and a half. Then you’ll curse yourself, and that idiot fashion writer, for getting rid of them.

Here’s a perfect example: I wore men’s Levi’s for decades. Even after I succumbed to pressure from those-more-fashionable-than-I to buy women’s jeans, I kept the old Levi’s to wear when I worked in the garden or painted. Just last year, I decided to get rid of them since I had discovered that my husband’s old sweatpants were more comfortable to work in and, thus, I would have no need for these jeans since I couldn’t wear them out in public.

Naturally, I just found these Helmut Lang jeans being sold online for $275. These are expensive because of the name, but it’s only a matter of time before Levi’s knocks them off and sells them for $100. Summinabeech*, as my husband says.

The moral here is that we should stop taking advice from inexperienced people who are younger than our clothes, hold onto everything, and let our heirs decide how joyful our stuff is.

* Translation: SOB