The Value of Things

I don't have many… things.

Not things of traditional value. Not things I could Bargain Hunt. Not things I could Flog It.

I don't miss them, I don't want them, I don't need them. They take up space. In my flat and in my head.

I have one thing I like. You might call  it a memorabilium. (OK, I might call it that). But it would be a memorabilium from an event I didn't technically attend. In fairness, pretty much nobody did.

It places a small and, to many, insignificant piece of magical history, in its moment. 

But what I like about it most is this. 

Intrinsically, it's worthless. 

It's tomorrow's chip paper, it's pulp, utterly without value.

OK, what's printed on it means something, at least in my eyes, but it's not diamond, it's not jade, it's not the world's largest cubic zirconia. It represents a connection, an impersonal connection perhaps, but to a very specific moment in time. 

And I don't want to sit here bleating that I'm not "material" because frankly, I probably am. I hadn't really thought about it and I don't intend to start now. 

And it's not just the vague idea of worthlessness I like. It's the pure, absolute poverty of  traditional market value. In other words, the more worthless it is, the happier I am. Charm seems to increase exponentially, based on the basic basis of of raw ingredients. 

Don't take my word for it. Ask any child who has his latest masterpiece magnetically secured to the front of an American fridge.

I have a lot of… things.

Ask me to do a minor task that I have never done before and there's a pretty good chance I may be able to find a thing, that will allow me to improvise. 

It won't be the right thing. But you know what? It just might be good enough.

Things. 

They are too close to clutter.

That's the good thing about Christmas. 

You can give things.

Away.

And worthless things, like the things I like, cost nowt.

So put away those giros. 

Give a worthless thing this Christmas. 

Or failing that...some thing of thingless worth.