SPEAKER_00 0:00

Or I would have I had like fancy dishes and everyday dishes like when is the queen coming by?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Never never coming to my place. It's never coming by.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention, and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and my guest today is one of my favorite people in the whole world and someone who once walked the city with a traffic cone on her head. Amy! Hello, Amy.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Oh, I've forgotten that tiny little episode of absolute sobriety.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

And welcome everyone to the show. Also, thank you so much for listening. I always ask that you share the show. That's how we build our community. We're independent, we don't have any sponsors, and the only way to grow the community is with your help. So if you can share the show with people you think might like it, enjoy it, please do so. I'll talk about some other things you can do at the end. But for now, let's get to it. Yeah, let's. Yeah. Okay, Amy. So we know humans like accumulating stuff. We like getting stuff, we like using stuff, and then we like getting new stuff. And that stuff starts piling up. So my question for you, Amy, is have you done your death cleaning?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I'm sorry, my death.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I was reading an article that was talking about a book called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

You gotta tell me what that is. What in the world?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Well, what it is, it's this philosophy, apparently in Sweden and other places, that because we're all gonna bite it one day, we ought to clean up. Purge our stuff. And and the thought is, I think, the the benevolent thought here is you don't want to burden your loved ones with a lifetime of clutter.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Or your sex stuff. You don't want people going through that.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Well, sure, but does that mean that you can just never have sex stuff? Because death is uncertain, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

I I don't know how that works. I don't know how it works with sex stuff. But the idea is that purging your stuff is a is a good idea. Their target audience is older people who are like, you know, tick tocking their way to the end of the road.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

You're thinking about that so that their children or other family or friends don't have to do that Scrooge thing where they're picking through the clothes and, you know, deciding what to keep or throw away or give away.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah. Yeah, no, it's rough.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

You know, I read about this and I was thinking about, yeah, I don't know if this is just for old people. This purging your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Um, you know, I know there's this whole or had been this whole fascination with this Marie Kondo.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Mm-hmm. Does it bring you joy, right? She's the joy lady.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, and the people would make the piles on that show. I could only watch one of the one or two of those episodes, and I just felt like, okay, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Like, how many times do I have to see this repeated?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah, I get it. It's joyful or not joyful.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

And the one thing that always is frustrating to me is no matter what you like, you know, we worry about what we pay for things, and we kind of, you know, sweat over the stuff's not worth anything when you try to sell it again.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Furniture, it's got no value. You think it does. Well, I paid X amount of money for this.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Nobody wants your used sofa.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Nobody wants it. Clothes have no value.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

None.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

It's like you pay all this money, and then like if you turn it around, try to sell it the next day, people are like, nope.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Don't want it.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Don't want it. That's true for any of the stuff. You know, there's a few things, maybe collectible art, I suppose, but most of it, most of your stuff has no value. And we fool ourselves into thinking that somehow there's value in our stuff and there's no value.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

What if you need it though, right? I mean, I think that's usually my rationale when I keep something that I know that I probably haven't. So, like the CDs, for example. I think there's this nagging thought that maybe what if I want to listen to Run DMC the entire album?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah, one day you want to spend one.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

One day I might want that. What if that happens on a random Tuesday and then I can't go buy it because it doesn't exist anymore?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

No, you can't get it. And you know, there are those things that probably are worth saving because they're one in a million. You know, they're they're non-replaceable. But a lot of stuff, you know, I've saved over the years lots of stuff on the idea that one day I may need it. For example, I saved all my college notes and books for decades.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

All of them?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

All of them. And I they were everything. Everything. All the textbooks and the notes.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I might want to look up something that you wrote down 10 years ago as I think 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah, because it's gonna come up.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

It might.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

And and you know, it'll I'll have it.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

So did you ever reference them? Did you ever go back and read any of them? Ever?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

No, no, no, never. There's no reason. And now with the internet, you can look up anything.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Did you did you purge them all at once? Or did you like slowly decide, like, okay, well, maybe not bio 101? Like, I can get rid of these, these like side, I'm never gonna these Hamlet notes are useless to me.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah, you never know when that pop quiz will come up, you know? They'll send you a little note saying, You're gonna have to take one more quiz. I still have those dreams, by the way. So, what happened was I was living in a big, pretty big house uh for one person. And and it just all the stuff I'd ever had. You know, the problem is when you the the bigger the space you live in, the more stuff you tend to get.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

And and more stuff people will leave with you, you know, because they say, Hey, can I leave this? Or your kids will, you know, I'm just gonna park this here and come get it someday, like never.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah. Can you just make this disappear from my memory and keep it on your end?

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah. So what happened is I was living in this big house and I realized I was gonna move and I was gonna move to uh an apartment and I had to get rid of a ton of stuff. And at first it was really hard. It was like, oh, what about this? It was like the Marie Kondo thing where people I got piles and I'm deliberating over each thing. But as it as it became closer and closer to moving day, I just started feeling I gotta get rid of this junk. And it went from, you know, me like, hmm, do I keep this shovel? I might need a shovel someday, to just like throwing everything out in my driveway and telling the neighbors they could come over for free stuff.

unknown 7:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Which they did. People love free stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I bet you they did.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

They love free stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

People love free stuff. I love free stuff.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Everybody likes free stuff. You can get rid of anything if you give it away for free.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

It's just like if they just it's just people are like they're lurking in the bushes waiting for your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

So, anyway, so I made this move and I got rid of a ton of stuff, including all those stupid college notes and all those books that I've been carding around. I mean, there was probably uh over a thousand pounds of books easily, easily, and all that junk and so much else. And I said, I am not gonna be all cluttered up. And then I get out here to this apartment and I still got too much stuff. Like, I have an insane amount. And I came up with my own little Marie Kondo philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Ooh, do tell.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

It's not, does it spark joy? It's is it out? Like, is it out where I can see it? And if it isn't, what am I doing with it? Like, why do I have it? Like, you know, some things aren't gonna be out, you know, like a bath towel in a cupboard, not that kind of stuff. But I mean, just all the junk that you're saving is like this isn't a storage unit. Why do I have it? When am I ever gonna go sledding again? Why do I need three giant coolers? When is that picnic gonna happen? Or I would have I had like fancy dishes and everyday dishes. Like, when is the queen coming by? Never, she's never coming to my place.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

She's never coming by.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

And who am I gonna have over that's gonna sit down and go, Oh, I can't eat here. These dishes are everyday.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

This was supposed to be a special occasion, sir.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

So I want to ask you, what's your stuff situation? You got a lot of stuff over there?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Oh man, it's so I I love stuff. I really love um I love decor stuff. Like I love old stuff, and so I go to like estate sales and right. I'll even do this thing where you buy these boxes of like old blender parts, and I, you know, it's it's a disaster. But I do have this like there's a peak that it reaches, and then I purge. But recently, I'm we are in a pretty big house, probably one of the biggest houses I've ever lived in.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

And it's a mansion.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

It's a well, it's a big house. Um, my oldest kid moved away. My second kid is in college, their second year of college, and my third kid is in their second year of high school. So we're nearing that point where it's probably just gonna be my husband and I in say three, four years, with a, you know, maybe a room that people could come visit. But we're gonna need to downsize. And I like you're saying, like we have so much stuff. I have sleds, for example. I have sleds, it snows once a year, and none of my kids sled anymore. Um, so I've really started this three-year plan to start downsizing before we get to that point where we have to do like put everything out in the driveway. But we're just at the beginning, so there's a lot of stuff, and you know, there's a weird emotional attachment to stuff. I think that the Marie Kondo thing really just doesn't work for me because so much of my stuff actually sparks joy for me. I really like things. So I think your philosophy might actually work better, but I don't know. I'm gonna have to work on it.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

There are some things you can do. For example, um, I I realized that I could take pictures of things that I like looking at and remembering, but I don't actually need to have them.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

That's that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Like a cool bicycle that I don't ride, but I've had it my whole life or something. So I'll take a picture of it and there it'll be, and I can always look at it and remember it, but in the meantime, I can give it away to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Well, and my husband actually has uh his philosophy is what if somebody else could use it more than you?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

So you're if your stuff is, as you're saying, like just you know, we've got a shed, we've got a basement, and we've got closets, and we got an attic space too, then all of those spaces have just stuff in them. Somewhere somebody could actually probably be using those things instead of them being underneath my house.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

And they'll come and get them for free for free. And people will come and pull crap out of your house, they'll do anything to get it. I've given away like big furniture, and people are like happy just to show up with some, you know, giant people and haul it out. The first thing you have to do is if you reduce your square footage, that's the best way to start this process. Because you have to start, you just you realize I can't keep all of it.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

There's no room for all of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

If you're not going to reduce your square footage, it's really tough to rationalize. Well, it's just because you got space for it, yeah. Because it's not hurting anybody. When we start earning money, like we get into our late 20s, early 30s, you maybe start a family, whatever. There's this whole acquisition phase, like getting the stuff that you need to make everything go, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah, for sure. And I like many people, I've been I've had a marriage more than once, and you know, my first husband died. So I there's that when you keep all this stuff from someone who's passed away and you just like you can't get rid of it, and then you get new wedding stuff.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Um what I found out is doing this kind of purging, as they say in this book on the Swedish, the Swedish death cleaning book. They you know, they say it's a cathartic experience to go through your stuff, and I found that to be true, and I think that would be true at any age because I I saved a lot of um stuff that was personally meaningful to me, like notes from friends in high school. Right. I had notes from friends, I had all kinds of little things like that that I liked actually looking at from time to time. So, what I did, because now we're in the 21st century, I scanned all that stuff. Oh I just took the time to scan it and then I could just let it go. And if I ever really want to look at it, I can. It's there digitally. I scanned tons of photos that were in old photo albums, it did all that stuff. So I so I didn't throw out the stuff that I really have an attachment to in the sense that it's still there digitally. I just don't have the physical item anymore.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

But then I came across this book called The Abundance of Less. And I highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Okay. The abundance of less.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah, and it's all about, you know, how little you need really to really enjoy your life and and uh how, in fact, by reducing the amount of stuff you have you actually uh increase your feelings of joy and and liberation really because you're not you're not living through your stuff. Your stuff isn't you, you aren't your stuff, and it doesn't have that kind of meaning and it frees you up to really focus on things that matter, like relationships and other people and all that jazz. And I gotta confess, I was kind of proud of my stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

I mean, I was caught up in it, and man, I've been through a thing lately. I don't know, I might be cracking up. You gotta tell me if you think I'm cracking up.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

I will.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

So tell me. So what I did, I think you know that a couple years ago I went off social media completely. I went cold turkey, and I felt like what I gained was peace and quiet. Because I felt social media for me was very noisy and dissonant. And when I got off, I didn't miss anything. I didn't I didn't feel like, oh no, I'm missing out. What I noticed was peace and quiet. Then, okay, so then this is gonna sound like a Black Mirror episode because there's that one episode where the lady goes off social media and she's treated like a pariah. I think they murder her.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

I don't know what happens, but it's it's like, yeah, how dare you! Um, but then the next thing I did is I stopped watching commercials. So I watch a lot of movies and T. I mean, I'm a tube hound. I mean, if it's a screen, I'm watching it. So, but what I did was I just I watched mainly stuff that I could stream, you know, or whatever without commercials. And if I wanted to watch something with commercials, I would um record it and then re and then watch it after it was recorded and skip through all the commercials. So recently I was watching something and I didn't record it in advance, and so the commercials were on. And I gotta tell you, they seemed almost crazy to me. Not I I don't even know how to explain it, but it was almost like I was on another planet and there were crazy people trying to communicate to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Well, you know that um this is a little bleak, but in the beginning of the um invasion of Ukraine with CNN was broadcasting the scene from it's this very stark scene of air raid going off, and then an Applebee's commercial comes on. Do you know this thing that happened?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Um, I'm just hearing about it for the first time, but don't let that stop you.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

So, yeah. So I get it. That's the whole story. And it was this moment of it was obviously so inappropriate, but that kind of thing, like we're so accustomed to having that kind of commercial break where we stop to be sold something that this incredibly stark, serious moment. Yeah, and so people kind of made fun of it. But I can imagine if you didn't watch a lot of commercials generally, that it would also seem kind of stark and like that, like inappropriate to stop in the middle of your thing that you're enjoying and have it broken up by saying, Hey, you want to buy a pizza?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah, and that's definitely the that's definitely true, but it's more than that. It's now striking me as absolutely insane the how hard people are trying to tell us that we aren't good enough the way we are. You aren't wearing the right clothes, you don't have the right phone, you aren't eating the right food, you're not the right kind of happy. It's just, it's I wish I could articulate this in a way that didn't make me sound like I was losing my brain.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

I don't think that it sounds like you're losing your brain. I think that you're connected to something that's incredibly important and real and is what's happening. I think I don't think uh we could both be crazy, but I think what you're articulating is something really meaningful and important.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Oh, let's both be crazy together.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah, it's like the matrix, man. It's like you red-pilled it or blue-pilled it or whatever pilled it.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

I may I'm in the matrix.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

You're in the matrix.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Something is happening. It's it's a real thing that's happened, and I wish I could uh at some point maybe I'll be able to articulate it. But the process of stepping away from social media, the process of stepping away from things like CNN and Rachel Maddow and all the things that I used to sort of be addicted to, stepping away from commercials, it puts you in an interesting psychic space. I'm not claiming that it's better, but it's really different. So commercials, even the cool ones or the funny ones, uh, they still feel very intrusive, not because they're noisy or not because they have this awful juxtaposition like the one you mentioned. All those things are always true, but because they just feel so um presumptuous, I guess, that that that someone feels like I'm not good enough the way I am. And they're gonna teach me what I they're gonna sell me on what I can do.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

And it just feels bad. That's how a consumer society works, though, right? You gotta buy the thing and you either gotta buy it because you're afraid or because you wanna, you know, be some version of something that you can never ever be.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

So you can look at my stuff. And by the way, I used to be down this road, so I'm not claiming I was always in this weird space that I'm in now. I was right in the middle of buying and accumulating and showing the stuff off and hoping people would make a judgment that what that I you know want them to make. But now it feels like I am really moved away from that. And moved away from it, I was at a thing the other day, and there were a couple people who were talking about it, it was kind of like the Applebee's CNN thing you said. They they they there was something on everybody's mind or you know, in social media that had happened involving. Involving a news person, a news celebrity or whatever they're called. Something they did or whatever. Of course, I didn't know about it because I'm not tracking that stuff anymore. I'm not tracking what a news celebrity does or doesn't do because I don't care. And it's extra. I don't need it. But in the old days, before I lost my mind, I would have known about it and I would have wanted to talk about it. But what the but the feeling that I had when I'm hearing them talk about it, and they're so like active activated by it. You know, you can tell it's they've they're really, you know, stimulated by whatever this thing was. The feeling I had was like watching somebody argue about the arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic, you know, after it hits the iceberg. It's kind of like this doesn't matter, guys. And I don't, and I didn't experience it like because that just sounded like what I was saying is that what they were doing was unimportant or beneath me or stupid. It but didn't feel like that at all. It just felt like this is I have no, absolutely no energy for any kind of things like this anymore. Life is so filled with everything. Life is so filled with everything. I didn't need, I don't need to know about us a scandal involving someone who reads news or has a news or discussion program. Who cares? I don't need it. I'm not interested. It's why would I add that to my life? So this purging of stuff that I've been doing for a few years now, where now I don't even need storage space. So this stripping down has kind of kind of moved over to other aspects of my life. And it's I I'm excited about it, but I also think I might be cracking up.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Why do you suppose you think you're cracking up though? What if because it feels unfamiliar, or it's just not the way you're accustomed to sort of navigating these things, or what?

SPEAKER_00 24:10

It feels weird to be out of the mainstream after being in the mainstream most of my life.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

And being, you know, being being always uh relatable. I always took a lot of pride in, you know, being able to relate to anyone, no matter what walk of life they came from, and just really being connected with what's happening in the moment and all the things, you know. And it's not like I'm I'm not like a hermit that doesn't, I'm not the hermit that never like reads the news. Like I'm up to date on the news and I I keep track, but I don't turn on CNN because I feel like CNN, the CNN and the 24-hour news model is predicated on the idea that they've got to keep eyeballs on the screen. And the way to do that is keep people in a constant state of agitation. Yeah. And I don't want to be in a constant state of agitation because real life can be agitating all by itself.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yeah, there's plenty of agitation.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Just being but that feeling of being outside the stream is it's not, I don't feel bad. It just feels strange like I'm on mushrooms, which I have not tried yet. But but it kind of feels like I'm on a trip. And it's started to really become evident in my life, and I'm starting to think, uh-oh, this is the beginning of the crack up.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Welcome to the margins, sir.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Welcome to the margins. I like it. Yeah, I haven't missed being on social media for the two years that I've offered. I've never once said, oh, and you know, people say, well, how do you know? Like, and there's things that I don't know. Like, I'll find out. Like, you know, something happened and it was significant in my social world I didn't know about. And, you know, I find out about it later than everybody else. But if it's really, really important and it's really involved someone that's really close to me, I'm gonna find out. So I get it where people would be listening to this and saying, What are you talking about, man? Like, come on, you're off social media. Go, you might as well dig your grave, junior. You're you're dead right now. But the experience has been quite stimulating because I actually seek out real interactions because I'm not having um social media interactions. In this book, the abundance of less. It was so stimulating because it really gets you thinking about all of the physical stuff in your life and all of the emotional and mental stuff, the stuff filling your psychic space. And it's done in the gentlest of ways. It's not like some mumbo jumbo. It all it does is tells little stories about Japanese people who reject the model of, you know, the Tokyo model of living in the city and working your brains out and, you know, riding the train in the work every day and just go, go, go. And they just moved out to the country and different people doing it different ways. And what I like about the book is it very it's very clear that it's it's not telling you what to do. It's not telling you, for example, that the way, only way to achieve this kind of lightness and quality in your life is to live in the country and not have a regular job or all this jazz. That isn't the point. It's not a prescriptive kind of book. It's more like just think about how you could apply this to your life in whatever way you want. And it doesn't even say that, but that was my takeaway. It's like very gentle, just think about it. And that started me on this road of getting rid of stuff and then trying to find other ways to lighten my psychic space. What do you think about that? Is that madness?

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah, I don't think it's madness. I think it's, and it sounds like it's had a very positive effect on you.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Maybe, unless I'm cracking up. That's why I'm counting on you to like you don't have to tell me now, but you could call me on the on the side. And I didn't want to say this during the podcast, man, but you are cracking up.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

I don't think you're cracking up. So let's say that you are cracking up. Sounds like it's kind of delightful.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Right. It's like uh Thomas, I think his name was Thomas Zaz, S-Z-A-Z. I might be spelling that wrong, and I may be mischaracterizing what he said, but basically he was saying he his philosophy was insane people are really the only people who are responding adequately and normally to an insane environment. It's like the world is crazy. So people who are so-called crazy are actually normal. And the people who are trying to hold it all together and pretend it's okay, pretend those commercials are okay, pretend their job is okay, pretend their life is okay, those are the real crazy people.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yeah. I'm in I'm inclined to agree with that. So that might make me that might mean I'm cracking up too, but I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

You're cracking up.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

I'm comfortable with my cracking up.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

I have a take about this whole Swedish death cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Because the the book is basically saying clean now, save your people from doing the cleaning later. And I'm thinking, no, why should they be cheated out of that? What it's why should they be cheated out of the experience of going through stuff, finding out our secrets, seeing what kind of sex toys we have, what what we're smoking, whatever we're doing, the secrets, and just the cool stuff we've saved and our little things. Maybe that helps them deal with the grief.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Why should we cheat them? If they come in, you so you croak off, and your people come into your place and you got nothing. And they're like, Yeah, there's no work to do, but uh now what? So I had another idea.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

You could invite your people over to help you do your death cleaning. Oh, you do it together in advance. Yeah, you know, and that could be anytime. Like you right now, you're a good four or five years from croaking, I'd say. And so, um, you know, you could have your kids come over like on a holiday, and you could go through stuff together and it you could process it and have memories and have a glass of wine or whatever, and then you know, get rid of junk. And so that is something I thought would be really cool, except for one thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

That's not how we do things here. We're not Swedish, we don't do Swedish stuff, we don't even have sobs anymore.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Oh, that's my husband's favorite car.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

I know, but they don't even make them anymore. Whatever happened to sob? Yeah, I don't know, they're not around.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

I think I think they do make them.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

They went bankrupt in 2011.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

That's news to me.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

You can't get a sob. We're not Swedish, but I think that's a good way to do it is to have your people do it with your people. You know, it's much more meaningful. It's be a more meaningful way to purge your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

I'm gonna I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Do what?

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Have my kids go through my stuff with me so that I can do do a Swedish thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

And you could be Swedish.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

And can be Swedish. Yeah. Swedish stuff.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Well, um, I think it's interesting to think about. I highly recommend finding ways to make your life and your psychic space and your physical space lighter somehow. You don't have to go crazy. You don't have to, you know, you don't have to be the weirdo who doesn't know the Applebee's thing. But there are it's there's so many ways to strip off layers. And the whole pandemic thing, I think, has gotten a lot of people reflecting about.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah, for sure. I think so.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

How to experience life differently and how to squeeze a little more meaning out of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

But um, I hope to hear about your death cleaning when you do it.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Take a picture and I'll scan it into my computer and I'll write you an old-fashioned letter.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Thank you, Amy. I appreciate you talking to me about death cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Yeah, thank you, Ross. And I I appreciate you giving me at least four years to live.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Thank you, people, for joining us. And we sure could use your help. As I said, sharing the show, um, talking up the show, telling people about the show, a lot of you do that. It really helps us grow the community. And um you can support us on Patreon if you want to go down that road. There's that option. You can reach out to us uh via email. We'd like to hear from you. If you are listening to this on an app that allows you to rate the show holy count, it really helps if you give us a the highest rating you can and a flowing review. The way that works in the podcast plan is it helps people find us. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are still holding on to that old stop because they don't make them anymore, or just someone who needs to purge their sex stuff, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Bye everybody!