Sound Like Anyone You Know?

1.Magazines – I’ve been obsessed with magazines since I was 7 years old. I meticulously organize and catalog them. My books are haphazardly strewn about on shelves, in piles and in boxes. However, the magazines are carefully organized on shelves, first alphabetically by title, and then chronologically within each title group. Why do I need 3 years of back issues of GQ at my disposal at all times? Because there are recipes, style tips, and other things I may need to reference if I’m debating someone in my apartment. It’s required, and as my collection spills out of the shelves and my closet, I suspect I’ll need a 5×5 for them in the near future.

2.Records – Climate Controlled storage please! I’m obsessed with vinyl records twice as much as I am with magazines. My mouth waters when I see pictures of massive wall-to-wall record collections, and as far as I’m concerned, the musty smell of a used record shop ranks above any perfume or cologne that could ever be manufactured. I regularly spend 50-75% of my rent on records, and am happy to go a day or two eating canned chili if it means that I can get that Boz Skaggs record I’ve been in search of for the last two months.

3.Parking Tickets – I get a lot of them. I haven’t paid any of them (yet). They litter the floor of my car, my apartment, and a couple have even been found here in the call center by my fellow employees. If the city would just realize that it’s plain wrong for ticketing me in the parking lot behind my house, this would be a done deal. But until they do this, I’m going to keep getting the tickets and in a couple months I’m going to need a 4x4x4 locker to hold them all.

4.Hair Products – I get them free from my uncle, who sells them to salons. Once or twice a year I get a huge package full of gel, moose, shampoo and conditioner. It’s all really nice fancy stuff, but I don’t use it as fast as I get it so I have a growing pile of it in my bathroom. I’d say I could fill about three standard file boxes with hair stuff. I imagine I’d put that in the 4x4x4 locker with my parking tickets.

5.T-Shirts – I have lots of them. For every t-shirt that I wear, I have two others that I never wear. I have the big ones that have been given to me by various people and organizations (including PhoneSmart). I have the really small ones that I wore in high school that I’ve out grown (when you are small and you wear tight clothing, any gain in size eliminates a sizable chunk of your wardrobe). I’ve got two of those plastic bins filled with shirts that I don’t wear, and I could get rid of those pretty easily. Come to think of it, I could also throw in the green and yellow plaid suit that I bought at age 17 (what was I thinking!).

6.CDs – While I mainly buy vinyl records now, I still purchase cds pretty regularly. But when I buy CDs, I purchase the cd and then rip it onto my computer, where I have it forever. The actual disc gets thrown into a box, never to be seen again. I have 4 boxes of cds, and the collection keeps growing. If I could get all those boxes out of my closet, I could finally turn it into that darkroom I’ve always wanted. This brings me to #7.

7.Cameras and Photos – I’m a photographer when I’m not selling storage. I’ve amassed a large collection of cameras. I have two main film cameras, as well as a lomo action sampler, a pentax K1000, two holga medium format cameras and then a collection of unused lenses and flashes. In addition to that, there’s all the film negatives and prints that I’ve had since I started photographing things 4 years ago. I’ve switched to digital now (When is StorageMart going to start offering digital storage space? I could use some of that too), but the film negatives and prints are way to important to throw away. For now, I think storage is a good way to go (Climate controlled, obviously) and someday when I’m famous I’ll pull them out of storage and sell the old prints at Sotheby’s, where each blurry photo of flowers will go for several thousand dollars.

8.Skeletons – We’ve all got secrets. I just don’t want any of them clogging up my valuable closet space. I’m no Tom Delay, so I think a 5×5 should do the job nicely.