Hoarder Schmoarder PEZuhroarder

My dad is a hoarder collector.  A self-proclaimed one, I might add. 
Kirk's parents are hoarders collectors.  Self-proclaimed, as well.

So it's really no wonder that we all come by it honestly. 

My sister is a hoarder collector, though she argues it's "not the same" as Jim-Dad's.  I'm a hoarder collector.  I don't really mind getting rid of stuff, but I despise the process it requires.  Organizing closets and going through this and that equals Texas-size headache to me, so I'd just rather not do it...thus hoards of stuff collections occur.  Kirk's a hoarder collector.  His reasoning is that you never know when you might need something or other.  And then there are the children.  All hoarders collectors.

But, perhaps the biggest hoarder collector we have in the family is Keaton.  The kid has a collection of collections.  He keeps papers and paperclips and bottle caps and the teensy syrup bottles from Cracker Barrel that come with his pancakes.  He has shells and rocks and leaves and pen caps and spiral notebooks and empty bullet casings and parts and pieces of anything and everything that he deems interesting enough to keep. 

As a result, when Keaton decides he's going to start a new collection, my reaction is usually, "Uh-huh, that's cool..." because the kid usually doesn't stick with something long before he's off to the next most interesting thing in the world. 

So it was when he decided he was going to start a Pez Dispenser collection. 

I smiled and nodded and said, "Uh-huh, that's cool..." and went on about my business.  I had no idea what would transpire over the next year.

It all started last February-ish.  The Pez Dispenser collection.  It started with a couple of Pez Dispensers he picked up at WalMart just because he thought they looked cool, and he had a couple of dollars burning a hole in his pocket.

Then he decided to gOOgle Pez Dispensers.

Which led to his eBay addiction discovery.

Long story short, since last February, Keaton's collection has grown to 195 dispensers (I know, because we count them often *wink*).  Some have been bought with piggy bank quarters, some have been worked for, some have been eBay finds, and a lot of them have been gifts. 

And so far, he's still loving the collection.  And as far as his dad and I are concerned, he's going to KEEP ON loving that collection.  Because we know how much has been invested in those crazy plastic candy machines.

Today, Keaton decided to get out his big bin of dispensers and ORGANIZE them, one of his most favorite activities.  And since I didn't have anything going, I decided to spend the day with him.  I let him tell me all about his favorite ones.  About the worth of this one and that one.  I watched him dust all of them and carefully place them away in their special boxes and bins with an organizational strategy that only a ten year old could come up with.  I even helped him make a spreadsheet that wasn't written in Childese, so that we could start keeping track of what he has and what he doesn't. 

It was fun.
But my favorite part was seeing him so excited about these things that he cherishes so dearly.





See the box of candy?  Yep..he doesn't eat it.  He hoards collects it, too....

Oh, how that boy makes me smile....

All for the love of Pez....