Close to Home by John McPherson for December 13, 2019

We have Bleeb and Dalcon both here today. Dalcon looks angry for some reason. Ok Brian she threw out your baseball cards what is the punishment going to be.

Because so many mothers threw them out, is why the few remaining ones are so valuable now. Probably the same with old comic books.

Give her the chair! And not the comfy one!

Speaking of throwing things out, decades ago, & recently married, I had a cat, & in the corner of my living room, had for lack of a better term, A “cat house” for it. It was dome shaped, made of wicker with an opening on one side, & had a cushion inside for the cat to crawl into & take a nap. I came home from work one day, & noticed it missing, & asked where it was. That old ratty looking thing, I threw it out was her reply. OK, so did you take out the money hidden under the cushion? A look of shear panic! No, she hadn’t. Since I lived alone a short time before that & was gone all day, it had been the perfect hiding place in case someone broke in while I was gone. What thief would ever think to look there? She didn’t either. Guess where I was hiding your birthday money dear. Needless to say, very expensive lesson learned, & she never threw away anything of mine again without asking. On top of that, the cat house had cost me some good money also when I bought it, & was still like brand new.

My mother threw out a first edition of the first Mad magazine.

Actually she sold them to a bunch of local neighborhood kids to put into the spokes with clothespins on their bicycles so they could sound like a motorcycle.

Not the 1972 ones!!! Johnny Bench, Roberto Clemente, Reggie Jackson.

So Brian’s 65 now, and his mom’s what, 85-90? Curious timing.

Not only did she throw out my baseball cards, she gave away my comic books and my Lionel trains…

That happened to my dad when he went to Vietnam. He claimed to have had the Mickey Mantle rookie.

My brother accidentally tossed my box of goodies in the trash when we moved. I never forgave him.

My mom tried to get me INTO baseball cards!

Go to the landfill and start digging.

Age old stories- moms and baseball cards, brothers and clothes- me too.

“That Honus Wagner card would have covered my tuition for all four years AND cleared your mortgage!”

I have 2 huge bins of cards to go through. I hope at least a few are worth more than a few cents.

And you just noticed that they’re missing. What about your Flintstone’s lunch pail?

So many questions! Is Dalcon wearing a beret? Is the decor considered early or post-modern abandoned warehouse? And who the heck dresses these people???!!!!!!! Hi Little Alien Dude! You’d better behave Dalcon! Santa is watching, and so is Bleeb! :)

Then there was the time one of my sisters threw out my other sister’s old Beatles albums.

I didn’t throw out my brother’s baseball cards. I threw out my brother. But the garbage man refused to take him.

If he was a freshman in college in ‘72, that means he’s about 65 now. Get over it dude. The cards are gone. SMH LOL

I can relate.

The guy in blue looks to me like a vampire for some reason!

Looks as though we must work ya’s over! Den we’re gonna hafta roughs ya up some, see! Not gonna sing, huh!? Alright Bleeb, go and acquire the services of one Mister Dalcon, and youse two mugs break out da rubber chicken and let her have it good, see!

Well, the other side of mom throwing things away she shouldn’t touch (and I agree, she shouldn’t touch), is what one of my kids did. He dumped a garage full of furniture and boxes and NEVER came back for any of it. Five years later, we still had a garage full of stuff and couldn’t use our garage. We couldn’t protect our cars from the Texas hailstorms. So my husband began throwing it away. It took weeks. Twenty years later that son has still never even asked about it.