An old friend (who is sure to comment and point out that he isn't as old as I am) is getting rid of a car that he has had for 11 years. Despite the fact that it's an old and junky car, I guess he's become attached to it over the years, and he mentioned that he'd spent more time with it than nearly anything he owns.
I've now been thinking about this for two days and making a list of what objects I've spent the most time with over the years. The list has a few parameters that could be adjusted: objects that I currently own? Things from only the last 11 years? (his arbitrary initial set point because of the car) Things from my whole life? Another question that has come up is the quality of the interaction, so to speak. Driving a car is a more interactive experience than simply sitting on a chair at work. (Which brings up another question: is this limited only to objects that I own?) Anyway, I thought I'd share my list, which you'll find below. (And you can see if I've forgotten anything obvious.)
But before I do that, another comment from the episode of This American Life that I listened to on my run this morning. The idea starts with the book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" which you've probably heard of. It's where you are supposed to hold each thing you own, and ask yourself if it brings you joy. And if not, into the dumpster it goes. But what about the objects themselves? How do they feel about it? So, TAL has a short story that is written from the viewpoint of a condom that lives in a young mans wallet, and is friends and neighbors, "Student ID Jordie Hirschfeld", "Provisional Driver's License Jordie Hirschfeld" and "Jamba Juice Value Card". Anyway, I thought it was fun, so here's a link to listen to it, but really, you should be listening to This American Life on a regular basis anyway. On to the list:
1. Wedding Ring, 107,000 hours. All day, every day for over 12 years. I only take it off to play basketball, I haven't done much of that since moving to Illinois.
2. Faith Ring, 79,000 hours. Shannon and I were 'Ma & Pa' on a pioneer trek about 9 years ago and we got these cheap rings that say 'faith' on them. I don't feel like I have that strong of feelings about the ring, and yet I've been wearing it for nine years. When it comes to accessories, I'm an all or nothing sort of guy - if I were to take the ring off and stick it on my dresser it would probably never go back on.
3. Wallet, 62,000 hours. Sometime when I was a teenager, I decided I needed a grownup wallet, so I bought one from Target, and I've had it ever since. This assumes 17 years and 10 hours a day carrying it around. If anything that 10 hours might be low. It would need to be increased to 13 hours to move up to #2 on the list.
4. Watch, 43,000 hours. I think I've had it about 5 years and I pretty much only take it off to shower. Yes, I take long showers, so I've only given myself credit for 23.5 hours per day.
5. Bed, 36,000 hours. 12 years, 8 hours per day. 10 hours per day would move it up a slot, which isn't totally inconceivable, as it's where I do most of my reading.
6. Gray shoes, 7,300 hours. Notice a really big step down in the hours from #5 to #6. But these shoes have been around for a long time as my main 'walking around' shoes. While we were in DC I put a picture on Facebook of how they are literally falling apart.
7. Sylarus chair, 4,000 hours. 4 years of work, 4 hours with that chair per work day.
8. Home chair, 3,700 hours. The chair is older, but I don't sit in it 4 hours a day. At least I hope I don't. I probably spend more time than this on the computer at home.
9. Sunday shoes, 3,400 hours. I've been wearing the same shoes to church every single week for 13 years now. These shoes actually did a very, very small amount of tracting as a missionary.
10. Civic, 2,000 hours. I've never had a commute to work that was longer than 15 minutes, and I've split that up over several cars over the years. And I don't like to leave the house on weekends if I can avoid it. So, this is a low number.
500. Running shoes, 143 hours. I have no idea where this one really should be on the list, but I was curious because I actually have a very detailed log of every time I have gone running in these shoes and I can actually measure the time rather than make some rough guesses as I have with everything else on this list. (I added in 5 minutes of time with them before and after each run which added 28 hours to the total.) The shoes are pretty worn out, having covered 910 miles so this isn't likely to climb much higher. Also interesting that I'm claiming that my walking shoes last 50 times longer than my running shoes - though they also spend a lot more time not walking while on my feet.
So, there's my list - what did I forget?
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