Collector's Curse

If there's a bane about collecting anything, it's the amount of space available for whatever there is to collect. From the usual stuff like books and pens to caps and cups and playing cards (okay we sorta described the stuff we've collected in our lifetime), we've reached a point where we can't really just buy whatever we want on a whim.

All covered by a single phrase: "There is no shelf space left!"

Which holds true when it comes to books, caps, and cups. As for pens, well, the pharmaceutical industry is one with multinational companies generous enough to hand out gimmicks so pens are ever plenty to the point where we've stopped collecting, unless we come across a nice unique pen that's worth keeping (like the bone-shaped Fosamax pen, or this large pen filled with numbered balls for a quick game of bingo or lotto, or souvenir pens). We've some three venti-sized Starbucks cups now filled with pens that most of them have dried up without even being used much (or at all).

Sigh.

Our Starbucks City Mug collection has reached its limit now that Kepong Biceps has brought back the Scotland City Mug (with the new design) for us (seeing how our old Scotland City Mug got chipped and mum immediately trashed it for us before we could stow it away, chip or no), and we may be expecting a London or Amsterdam City Mug from another friend too. There's also other coffee mugs we've gotten stowed together with our City Mugs, waiting for the day when they finally have a showcase/shelf where they can be displayed individually.

Books? We actually now blame BookXcess for considerably filling up the bookshelf we had installed under our cubicle, and am now considering a second bookshelf if we can find that particular model again. We actually find ourself walking into the store almost every single day of the week just to have a peek at what's new on the shelf (even if there hasn't been any new arrivals!) just in case we spot something that would be snapped up quickly, like Calvin & Hobbes treasury comics or The Art Of Discworld, and we don't care we're going to blame them for the fact that we have two copies of The Hounds Of The Baskervilles.

But we love them anyways. Where else can you find the complete set of Little Miss series (we'll wait until the complete Mr Men series are out before we buy 'em!) or audiobooks at the cheap? We'll be drowning our little niece with books from here!

Anyways. We sort of find that we need to cut down on the collecting especially after we've relocated and find that to our shame we have ten cups/mugs/glasses in the office, out of which we only use three - our KL City Mug for our drinks, a glass that looks like the A&W Root Beer stein from Chatuchak, and the third one technically a cafetier but take off the cover/plunger/filter bit and we can use it to drink water. As for the rest, well, they've just got to be stacked nicely into bags and stowed under the cubicle desk...