Hoard.

A long time ago I had a garage. It was my garage, a guy's garage, a man cave where I put the mighty Ford to bed every night. I filled it with sporting equipment, tools, bits of furniture that were destined for the tip but just maybe, had one more move left in them, plus an array of items passed their use by date but happily ensconced in my cave. It didn't take long before the car was parked in the driveway and the garage was a wall to wall treasure trove of useless abundance. I give an insight into my past bowerbird tendencies because UCLA has just finished an anthropological study on the middle class dual income families in Los Angeles and the findings closely mirror our own proclivity for collection to the extreme.

The presumption of too much stuff easily identified through photographic evidence, showed all manner of useless accumulation stuffed into every corner of the house, the garage, storage facilities and any spare room at Mum's place. So much proliferation that 75% of families had stopped using their garage to park the car, had acquired a second fridge to cover all manner of natural disasters that would require ten dozen cans of beer, two dozen frozen hamburger patties and an assortment of frozen food from the previous decade, along with the requisite TV for every room. Nothing was thrown away because it never got a chance to become old as planned obsolescence ensured new and shiny replacements pushed yesterday's purchase to the garage .

From the study, I was able to avoid one downfall, children, due to forgetfulness or expense, I can't remember but noted each child added another 30% more possessions to the household, putting even more strain on the confines of the family abode. It wasn't a study on those crazy hoarders you see on current affairs program's but normal families living and breathing the consumer culture of today. The ampleness of acquisitions caused stress levels to rise in mothers as they spent hours cleaning, tidying, rearranging and finding house hold items to get everyone through the day.

Time was the most precious item lost within the cacophony of clutter as no one really knew where the scissors were, what had happened to the good pair of socks or how come the Bon Jovi CD was in the Rihanna cover? With so much stuff it becomes over whelming and the justification of picking up 50 items or 5 becomes easy territory to do the least and suffer the consequences. Following our American cousins, we have taken on one of the worst offending catalysts, the big box stores such as Costco et al and we now fill the boot with 24 rolls of paper towels, trays of baked beans and a plentiful bounty of frozen pizzas, all to be stored and admired in the second or third fridge.

He who dies with the most toys wins, is an anachronistic term penned in the over abundant 80's and has no place in today's busy world where we only need to accrue one thing. You'll be pleased to know I have broken the yoke of aggressive accumulation and now park my car in a spot under our apartment with no recourse for boxing any sale items, under threat from the body corporate. The less is more mantra has become all consuming as I become the beneficiary of more time accrued. Now that's worth hoarding.