# What's the thing you inexplicably own a million of? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 4, 2026, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206 "2026-03-04T21:07:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/61 "2026-03-05T17:24:10Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > IME garage sales still work that way. People with full garages sell crap to other people with full garages. Who in turn sell it back to the first people. It’s the circle of crap. Excess crap. You have previously extolled your lean and minimalist lifestyle, an area in which we’re complete opposites. You’d be horrified at the sight of my garage, and trust me, the basement is 10x worse! I posted a pic here of getting rid of just a few things prior to my last move: > [@The De-Clutter and Clean Up Support Thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-de-clutter-and-clean-up-support-thread/628329/1143): > > This is what my life is like – these are a few odds & ends from my last move – and this happens every move! This is a full-size dumpster, and it’s just in the process of being filled – nowhere near done! smiley[[image] ](https://i.imgur.com/sBRV6iV.jpeg) And those are just the things I could carry out and put in the dumpster myself. There were larger items that I just told the movers to leave on the curb, like a large console Sony Trinitron TV and a portable dishwasher! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/62 "2026-03-05T17:37:10Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Just how many shits does anyone need? Answer #1: Sometimes you just need to show that you really give a shit, and how are you going to do that if you run out of shits to give? Answer #2 (Firesign): But they’re really _great_ shits, Mrs. Presky! ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/63 "2026-03-05T17:41:19Z")
I have a kabillion jam jars. This is because I home-can jam, and every time a new type of fruit crop ripens, I buy some more jars so I can make new apricot, raspberry, peach, or blackberry jam. But there are still full jars on the shelf from last year, so as they gradually get used up, the empties are added to the stash. If only the jam wasn’t so good! Then I’d stop making it and the jars would be trashed and it wouldn’t be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/64 "2026-03-05T17:50:02Z")
I think that if it’s things that you actually use or may use, it’s very explicable. It’s the keeping of tons of items that you will never reasonably use that’s crazy to me. I have a small number of plastic to–go food containers that I use from time to time but I throw most of them away unless I give one to someone for leftovers at my house and then I just keep the next one that I get. Any other thing that someone could use like if I upgrade a tool or it’s a thing I have that I end up never using, I give it away. Clutter makes me insane. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/65 "2026-03-05T17:53:19Z")
This. e.g. Keeping some one-time use plastic grocery bags around for temporary tote bags or for bundling up trash is fine. But keeping 2 dozen when 1 dozen is a year’s supply for your household is just silly. And keeping every one you get every week “just in case” is outright wacky. It’s the inability to distinguish between “enough”, “too many”, and “stupid too many” that’s disturbing. To me. Some folks’ MMV. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/66 "2026-03-05T18:02:49Z")
I used to have a big stash of those because I would use them for dog poop bags but once the doggie died, most of them were tossed. I hate waste as much as I hate clutter. I have been re-using those paper grocery store bags for years. I had one from Trader Joe’s that I had forever. I went in once when they had just made a new design that was “retro” using one of their previous designs that dated to well before any of the employees were working there. They were teasing me because the ones that I had were so old that the exactly matched the retro bag. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/67 "2026-03-05T18:20:55Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > I have about 125 different electric kitchen mixers, primarily pre-WWII. My 13 year old grandson has 75 vintage cell phones. That sounds more like a deliberate collection of kitchen mixers than something you inexplicably own. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/68 "2026-03-05T18:22:46Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Yes! We have a jillion of the Talenti gelato containers with the screw-on tops. They’re good for all kinds of stuff. If we ever run low, I’m sure we could manage to eat more gelato. For me, it’s the plastic tubs that two pounds of yogurt come in. Those tend to accumulate so once I have enough, any surplus goes in the recycling bin. ---
**Author:** ![a6ka97](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c2a13f/32.png) [@a6ka97](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a6ka97)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/69 "2026-03-05T19:00:24Z")
Coke, Pepsi, 7up ACL (applied color label) pop bottles from the 1950s-1980s. I collect “off” brand”/local bottler ACL pop bottles. Sometime I will need to buy a group of bottles just to get the one I want which results in getting more of the common brands that I already have. Probably have close to 100 of these “common” brand pop bottles sitting in crates in my closet. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/70 "2026-03-05T20:25:13Z")
My sister told me about a story in The Onion about a 5-family garage sale, where they all just bought each others’ stuff. I, too have more plastic containers than I could possibly use, because I do reuse them for leftovers and as freezer containers. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/71 "2026-03-05T20:45:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > e.g. Keeping some one-time use plastic grocery bags around for temporary tote bags or for bundling up trash is fine. But keeping 2 dozen when 1 dozen is a year’s supply for your household is just silly. And keeping every one you get every week “just in case” is outright wacky. > > It’s the inability to distinguish between “enough”, “too many”, and “stupid too many” that’s disturbing. To me. Some folks’ MMV. True, but I think this is not a good example, at least between ‘enough’ and ‘too many.’ Because they are so thin, telling the difference between one and two dozen bags crammed into whatever corner you’ve crammed them into, well, you’d have to pull them out and count them, and why bother? Now if you’ll only ever need a dozen and they’re overflowing that corner, then that’s too many, but that might require four or five dozen for that to happen. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/72 "2026-03-05T20:59:51Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > IME garage sales still work that way. People with full garages sell crap to other people with full garages. Who in turn sell it back to the first people. It’s the circle of crap. Excess crap. When I was younger, I went through a couple of cycles of starting nearly from scratch, and I hit a lot of yard sales and stuff back then. But I haven’t gone out of my way to go to one in at least 15 years, though occasionally while doing errands, if I’m driving right by one that looks interesting, I’ll pull over and look if I’ve got the time. But even then it’s rare that I’ll pick something up. OTOH, our community has a community yard sale each spring: there’s a sign out in front of the neighborhood advertising it, and everyone has their own yard sale at their yard without having to do their own advertising. I just put stuff out by the curb with a sign saying, “FREE STUFF,” and whatever doesn’t get grabbed, goes to the thrift store or the dumpster. Ain’t worth my time to sit out there and try to pick up a few bucks for it. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/73 "2026-03-05T21:01:15Z")
OK, someone has got to say it: Euros. Inexplicable, yes, but quite pleasing. > [@mixdenny](#): > > My 13 year old grandson has 75 vintage cell phones. Vintage? You mean like, say, up to 30 years old? > [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I found a box full of cardboard tubes from the middle of toilet paper rolls. Whaaa…? They are practical for growing plants from seed. Fill them up with soil and after they germinate and grow a bit you can plant them with the cardboard tube in the soil and the roots will not be damaged. Then the cardboard rots and disappears without hurting the plant. Or granny was bonkers or re-living her anal phase, also possible. > [@hajario](#): > > I hate waste as much as I hate clutter. In our home the wife and me share those roles. I hate waste, so I avoid throwing things away. She hates clutter, so she tries to get rid of stuff. An inexhaustible source of debate. She is more ~~patient~~ obstinate than me, so she usually wins in the end. It is an uphill struggle for me: I have to resist every attempt, she only needs to succeed once and the stuff is gone. And of course she keeps on trying until she succeeds! I am miffed for a while, then I forget about it. Which probably proves her point. But still! ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/74 "2026-03-05T21:25:15Z")
You need to separate the pairs if you don’t want them to breed. It’s sad, because scissors mate for life. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/75 "2026-03-05T21:45:50Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > e.g. Keeping some one-time use plastic grocery bags around for temporary tote bags or for bundling up trash is fine. But keeping 2 dozen when 1 dozen is a year’s supply for your household is just silly. And keeping every one you get every week “just in case” is outright wa We have an entire kitchen cabinet full of bags. My wife has an irrational fear of losing everything and becoming a bag lady on the street. I can say one thing, she has the bag part down. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/76 "2026-03-05T21:55:49Z")
I have about a half-dozen boxes of staples, totaling thousands. I hardly ever use them. In fact, I only recently finished a box of 500 that I bought at Hill’s, a department store chain that went belly-up about 30 years ago. (I kept the box as a souvenir.) I acquired many of these while cleaning out my parents’ house, and that was around 2005. They had boxes and boxes of staples. I don’t know why. I took them, and now they’re all mine. They will long outlast me, as will the three staplers I somehow acquired. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/77 "2026-03-05T22:31:37Z")
Funny you should mention staples. Other than foodstuffs like granules of sugar or flour, or beans, or grains of rice, staples are the thing I own the most of by piece count. And by a hefty margin to boot. Back in the early 1990s I shut down a small business and took home the last of the office supplies. Which were duly used up or lost during the paper-heavy years that followed. A year-ish ago the last of those legacy staples was used. So I needed to get some new ones. Despite my relative lack of paper use here in 2026, it’s not yet zero, and nothing really substitutes for what a stapler does. The minimum purchase is one box ~4" x 1.5" x 1" and one box holds 5000 staples. Of which I’ve used about 20. So one a month maybe. On present trends I’ll probably use three hundred before dying of advanced old age. At most. In other words, by my own definitions that’s owning “stupid too many”. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/78 "2026-03-05T23:18:23Z")
You can make things with staples. I love staples. They’re not for just paper fastening. God, I’m sick 🥴 ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/79 "2026-03-05T23:25:55Z")
> [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > I somehow always keep the hex keys that come with stuff that Requires Some Assembly I recently put together a modular IKEA shelving unit, but each part came with its own allen key, so I ended up with eight of them for one single piece of furniture. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2026, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206/80 "2026-03-05T23:29:08Z")
And all 4mm. Shame we can’t convince them to make things w a variety of head sizes so we could skip buying an Allen wrench set and instead collect one. Bastards. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thing-you-inexplicably-own-a-million-of/1028206.md?page=5)