Oh dear, I have another problem

Let's put the magazine issue aside for a moment and move on to what could, in some ways, be seen to be an ever bigger problem. Now, I admit that I have had some of my magazines for quite a while (2005 copies of Wanderlust which I was keeping as I thought they might be useful for holiday research), but this is even more serious.

Like many of you who are making the best effort to be 'green', I keep my plastic carrier bags so I can re-use them (as rubbish bags, nappy bags, for return trips to the supermarket, etc, etc) and I also keep paper bags for the same reason. There's an ulterior motive for keeping paper bags too - they nearly always look really nice! It seems that it's the 'fancier' shops who use paper bags, and perhaps my thinking is that if I re-use them when out and about, people will be impressed by how fancy I am. Ha! Except it would seem that I don't re-use my paper bags, I just keep them. And that, dear readers, is the problem. Look and learn, and let this be a lesson to you all...

The other evening I needed some thick paper to wrap a parcel so I reached down my 'bag of bags' from its resting place on top of the fridge-freezer and pulled out this little beauty.

It's from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York - now that's a bit fancy, isn't it? As I was about to take the scissors to it, I noticed there was a receipt still attached at the top. Now, being a curious type I decided to have a little look at the receipt to see what it was I had bought when last at the Museum. Three books, apparently. I couldn't remember buying them, and in fact couldn't even remember going to the Met the last time hubby & I were in NY (last May, for a whole month - yay!) That was when I had a little peek at the date.

September 29th.

1992.

OH MY GIDDY AUNT.

That's last century.

That's 17 years ago.

That's when I was still at university.

That's just unbelievable.

As my friend Liz said when I told her, 'Some people have been born, been to school and left again in the time you've had that bag.'

It also means that I have packed up and taken that bag with me everytime I've moved since then. And that means I have packed it up not once, not twice, not even three times, but TEN times.

Is there any hope for me? Hubby thinks not.