There’s a good reason that my house is so cluttered. Not only am I lazy and easily bored with such trivial matters as cleaning up the mess, but I’m also a pack rat who can never throw anything away. That wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t keep accumulating more stuff.

The worst part of this condition of mine isn’t the temptation to buy, but the need I have to fill in all the blanks. All I want is everything I don’t have, but only in those few categories that interest me. I read book reviews and want to read all the books in the world. I read music reviews and want to own every CD ever recorded.

It’s not even just that. I need to own (or at least have access to) every song ever recorded by the performers I like. I can’t settle for the greatest hits package; I must have the box set. I’m a completist. That’s not even a word, according to my spell check, but it’s what I am.

I’m better now, but in my wilder days I accumulated all the books in the Narnia series, none of which I’ve ever read. I have the complete works of George Strait, which I’ve listened to straight through exactly once. I have about fifteen years of issues of National Geographic, some in boxes and others just piled up randomly. How many articles have I read in the magazine over the years? A few. I do look at all the pictures, though, once.

Baseball fans are statistic nuts, and I have books where I can look up every major league record in the history of the game. If they put it all on a CD, I would own that.

It’s a good thing I’m broke, or I’d be totally insolvent. If I had money to spend, I wouldn’t have it very long. Even so, I find myself using my credit card a little too often. I’m trying to get over this problem by being aware of it. Lately I’ve been bingeing again, and I have to rein myself in before every speck of space in my vast palatial home is covered with stuff. And any leftover space is covered with empty packing boxes. It’s a curse, like frogs and locusts, except that I do it to myself.