Had it...lost it
Once upon a time, I was happy and well adjusted BK.
I waltzed through primary school, consistently top of my class and a great relationship with my Mum and Dad. I worked hard and was proud of it.
Some called me a swot, but it was water off a duck's back. I walked with my head held high. In short, I had dignity.

Then, at 15, I discovered alcohol. I liked the taste, and I liked how it made me feel. My dignity did not like it, however; not one bit. The more often I drank, the smaller my sense of dignity became, shrinking in on itself like a slug in a salt bath.

Since I began drinking I have abused my dignity far more than my liver.

I have, on various occasions:

Performed a Full Monty in front of 700 people;
Wandered through Middlesbrough dressed as Eminem, waving a plastic chainsaw at random passers-by;
Posted a picture of an erect Little-Boss under the bedroom door of my friend's housemate;
Dislocated my elbow staggering about at a festival and, in a Guiness-induced haze, attempted to relocate it myself;
Knocked myself out slipping on someone's vomit in a crowded pub;
Walked face-first into a lampost waving at a friend on the opposite side of the street;
Got myself and my friends kicked out of an Indian restaurant for abusing the waiters and spitting on the floor;
Slashed my wrist open punching a window;
Told my dear Mum to fuck off during a Southern-Comfort fuelled screaming match with my ex-wife at my 21st;
Woke up gaffa taped to an office chair outside a tent;
Woke up in my friend's laundry hamper;
Been jumped by four scallies when stumbling home one evening, and came off best;
Paid a prostitute in advance, realised what I was doing, and then ran away;
Abused an old woman in a pub when she told me to stop swearing;
Called the University women's football team a pack of screaming rug-muchers when they were sat at the table behind me;
Stuck my dick over my friend's top lip when She was passed out, and taken a picture;
Woke up on my sofa with a morning glory and a sprained ankle, being grinned at by my housemate's girlfriend;
Managed to kick a bouncer in the head while being dragged out of a nightclub after losing heavily in a punch-up.

And this is just to name a few.

In conclusion, My Dignity 1980-1995. RIP.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 19:18, 4 replies)

A complete set of Thuderbirds collector cards
in the proper binder too.

Also a complete album of premier league 95 football stickers. I saw one on eBay for about £25 not long ago - almost 25% of what I must've spent on the things.
( thistle, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 19:13, Reply)

Those Star Wars Toys
I was a bit old for them but my brother had loads,until the day of our cherised discovery.

If you put their moveable legs astride the washing line, pulled the washing line down as far as you could, then let go, the Star Wars figure would twang into the air with impressive velocity.

Needless to say this sowed the seeds of inventiveness - by stretching the line horizontally rather than vertically you could twang the figures some distance.

I don't think any of them ever got to a galaxy far far away but we lived at number 16 and C3PO made it to number 26.

I regarded this as a transitory amusement and was'nt concerned about retrieving the airborne plastic twerps, and my brother did'nt have the courage to knock at Mr Dixon's door and tell him that some stormtroopers had just landed in his back garden and please could he get them because he wanted to play with them.

Length? About 20 foot but eventually I pulled back on it too hard and it broke...bloody washing lines...
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:44, Reply)

A parents view point...
List up you whining pissers. If you think we're gonna turn our houses into junk shops on the off chance that some of this plastic tat and piles of musty comics are going to be worth a few quid in 20 years time, you can fuck right off.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:35, 5 replies)

I come from a family of horders
Nothing I mean nothing gets chucked. Clothes that were second had to begin with are passed from child to child until they get used as dusters, then oil rags finally firelighters. rather than throw stuff away it tends to end up at the top of the attic and and the back of the shed.

I was always quite proud of this. while the other kids were wingeing about how their toys had vanished into oxfam during the school day. I smugly new that my mum, raised by a man who would strip a burned out electric kettle for parts rather than chuck it out, would not even hoover up a single lego brick.

This summer my parents were clearing out the attic in order to make room for their new extension. I was called in to sort through my stuff. finally the hording had paid off, pound signs were looming in my eyes as I envisioned making a killing on eBay.

NO. BOXES AND BOXES OF WORTHLESS TAT YOU COULDN'T SELL AT A CAR BOOT.

I can only assume that time has glossed over people memories as the the value of their childhood possessions. As all i found was 20 year old brick a brack, that I ended up chucking away in one trip to the dump.

Junk isn't priceless, we are just associating childish emotions with certain objects because we had them as kids. Possibly being unique in the sense that my mum kept my stuff allowed me to see it with grown up eyes for the trash it is. The price certain stuff commands Is created by people who are desperate to regain a piece of their lost youth.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:25, 1 reply)

A different sort of loved-and-lost.
I would imagine that there will be more of these stories from others, but I may as well go first.

I was involved with a woman- we'll call her Jan for the purposes of this story- who was a bit older than me. In retrospect it was perhaps a little too much of an age gap, but eleven years didn't seem to be too bad at the time.

How to describe her? She had blonde hair that she refused to brush, so it was always going in every direction. Her eyes were the pale blue of a china doll's eyes, and crinkled slightly when she smiled. She was a few inches shorter than me and had been battling her weight for years, so she was soft and curvy but in great shape from doing endless yoga. She was beginning to show her age, but she was still pretty enough to catch a man's eye on the street.

We had many similar interests and enthusiasms. Both of us are very good cooks, we both have an artistic side and can create beautiful things, we both loved to be outdoors as much as we could manage... our lives were running very much in parallel. And we both very much loved sex and seeing what we could do to each other to elicit more moans and gasps, so we were very sated most of the time.

I lived a distance from her, as she was out in the countryside in a rented cottage and I was in a city flat. She didn't always like coming to my flat because of the railway that ran a quarter mile away and the light pollution that meant that my bedroom was never truly dark, so most of the time I drove an hour to her cottage. We spent each weekend together and had a nicely idyllic life together for the better part of a year.

Then came the M word.

I would imagine that by now you may have gotten the impression that I'm not eager for big lifetime commitments. I tried gently explaining to Jan that while I loved the life we had together, the very thought of being bound to someone else made me want to run, fast and far. Why couldn't we just have things as they were?

The discussions got worse each time, and finally I could take no more. We ended it civilly, but we ended it.

That was five years ago.

I've seen her since. She has aged a bit more, but still has that big smile and the wild hair that I loved so dearly. She's living in a small cottage that she bought, with her three cats and a lot of beautifully crafted things that her touch has created. I've never asked if anyone has come into her life, but a woman like that shouldn't stay single for long.

I loved her and lost her, because I threw her away.

I still don't know if I made the right choice.
(Shimrod, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:21, 8 replies)

You're better off without it, honestly
My mum decided that I had loads of Action Man stuff that I didn't play with, however rather than chuck it out, she suggested I sell it to one of the rich kids who lived down the road.

I remember taking it all down to his huge house. He had a bedroom the size of our ground floor and so much stuff already I wondered why he needed my knackered old toys. It was greed I think.

Two weeks later he died in a helicopter crash.

See, that's what happens if you hold onto all your stuff. I think.

(Moral slightly compromised by my spending the dosh on yet more Lego. Which I still have thirty years later)
( chthonic, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:18, Reply)

Sparky Comics
My mum will keep old lumps of cheese with blue mould on them, half a lettuce with brown slime or half a spoonful of honey. She collects plastic bags, carboard boxes, old newspapers, jam jars and rubber bands. She wears the same dressing gown she has had since I was born, has never knowingly thrown away a book or even given one to the charity shop, keeps every card and photo I ever send her. But the minute I left home, she slung all of my beloved Sparky comics into the bin. I still sometimes wander forlornly around her loft looking for them. And she has moved three times since then.
I really loved The Sparky People
( seeballs Doo da da doo da da doo da da doo, da da doo da do, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:18, 1 reply)

Christmas money.
I decided, no way am I leaving that lying around for thieving sisters' fingers, and put it in an empty envelope from a card.

Two hours later, we've cleared up all the paper and I go to take my pile of presents upstairs. Er...where's my money?

I'd just lost my job as well, and could have used that £60 :(
(and now for someone completely different, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:13, Reply)

not exactly thrown out but sold...
my grandparents house after they passed away - sold for £80k 14 years ago... sold last week for £280 - ahh crap (i told em to keep it n all!)
( SkUG >_O i got a couple of stitches in my eyeball... ow, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:05, Reply)

My folks found an old record player in the loft and threw it out...
Well it wasn't records as such. It played some cylinders. They thought it was junk. Apparently worth quite a bit of cash.
(Wize, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:04, Reply)

Not Exactly thrown away but.
I had a workmans box rather large full of warhammer models i think it was an undead army actually but they were all introcatly painted, many hours spent on each model all packed away nice and neatly. some how i had managed to piss my mum off to which she picked up my box of precious models and hurled them down the stairs!! absolutly destroying everything in the box only a lone spacemarine survived and i didnt even collect them ,

bitch
(yousatonmybiscuits liberty city has the worst cab drivers, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 18:04, 5 replies)

Not 'real', not a big deal (now),
but i bet the younger of us can all relate to the moment that mam stepped on the power lead to the console, sending 6 hours or so of hardcore gaming down the pan because you saw no need to save your spot until it was too late.
( thyrf as in turf, but not, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:59, 1 reply)

Not so much thrown out...
A few years back myself and my girlfriend were running an internet/gaming centre. As we were living in a tiny flat with no storage, the owner let us store lots of boxes there as there was plenty of spare space. Boxes of clothes, photos, assorted setimental tat, and my collection of music equipment - lots of synths, sequencers and effects.

Business seemed to be going well, until we went to work one monday morning to discover bailifs had been in and changed the locks because the owner hadn't been paying the rent.

Despite assurances from the letting agents that we would be able to get our stuff back because it "obviously had nothing to do with the shop" they sold/binned the lot.

Cluttons are a bunch of lying hamtouchers.
( biovalve skewing the demographic on cold-call surveys, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:51, 1 reply)

Don't get me fucking started
How does 'a mint collection of the first 100 editions of 2000AD comic donated to my brother and me by a family friend, that my mother in all her Christian glory thought were 'unsuitable' and burnt on a bonfire' grab ya?

*weeps with rage*

There will be more from me this week fo' sho'.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:42, 1 reply)

The ex-Mrs Dio
Threw out my passport 'by accident'. I'd hired a car so needed proof of ID. So I put some old utility bill and my driving licence and passport in a bag along with a magazine to read on the train to collect said vehicle.

Upon our return from the week away I left the bag on the kitchen worktop intending to deal with contents later. While I was at work on Nightshift over the next few days she decided to tidy up. And looked in the bag, decided it was rubbish and threw it out (in spite of my insistence that anything that can be used as ID meets the shredder first). Cue me asking where the bag was when I finally returned to a Diurnal state. AAAARRRGGGHHH!

Oh, and she also binned the cardboard box that my 'ON Digital Monkey' came in as 'junk'. Meaning the toy itself is kinda worthless now as every member of staff got one but only a few of us made an effort to save the box!
(Dionysian Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:38, Reply)

Found and Lost
I once worked with a few likeminded mates in a salvage firm. We chipped together and bought a battered camper van. We then souped it up a little so it had the ability to store anything we found on our travels (Which we may be able to sell to some of the local inbreds for either a few quid).

One day when on our travels we came across a couple of bits of scrap electronics that turned out to be in fairly decent condition (Most parts were still working). No sooner had we restored them as best we could then some local farmer had bought them both from us for a decent price. My mates were chuffed and spent the takings on one round at the pub.

The morning after the old bill turns up and starts asking me and my mates about selling some goods that they were looking for. It turned out that those two bits of scrap electronics we sold earlier had some info about a government building that was being built hidden on them- the news of this pissed me off a bit that as I could have asked for more from the farmer I sold it to if I knew that.

The next thing I know the plod start shooting my mates dead and try to blame the murders on sandpeople.

Thrown away all the Star Wars models? Not me, I sold 2 original cast members for sod all.

(Sobs)
(mon bison powered by magnets, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:28, 3 replies)

.
I lost something very dear to me...
meh
fuck it we've got two more of them

yours.
kate mcann.
(Freddles, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:25, 2 replies)

Cripes
3 words. Dangermouse duvet set.

Never saw one anywhere else other than on my bed.

Sob.
(B3tatimolsky, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:23, 5 replies)

A stuffed toy dog, my dog fucked it.
I'd had this stuffed toy dog since I before I could crawl. In my time I'd probably drooled on it, puked on it, pissed on it, spilt food all over, the usual for a favourite stuffed toy. Every time it went into the wash and came out good as new.

Fast forward many years and I'm having a clear out. The toy[1] is put on the floor while I hunt for something else. I turn back a few seconds later to see Pointless[2] has mounted it and is shagging away for all he is worth.

Protests that he was literally raping my childhood fell on deaf dog-ears until the inevitable happened.

Regardless of the spills and stains that the toy has suffered and been cleansed from before, I could not find it in me to keep or clean the dog-spunk covered toy.

Twenty-odd years of history dumped in the bin because of thirty seconds of animal passion.

Bloody Pointless.

[1] Yeah, I'd kept it until well into my 20s. It just got shoved to the back of the wardrobe.

[2] My dog is called Pointless because he is in truth a soppy pointless animal.
( speedyballbangpots, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:18, 1 reply)

A ten pound note
signed by dj Tiesto.

Used it to buy more drugs.
(Errorist, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:17, 1 reply)

Who's worse? binmen or postmen?
Back in the days when photos were taken on film we had amassed a collection of half a dozen undeveloped films from parties/holidays etc over about a year. Hard times had meant we'd not had them developed.

However when things turned we sent them off to "cheapo postal processing R us". When they hadn't arrived after 2 weeks we were a touch concerned but had to go away for a few days and had paid the extra for recorded delivery.

Now this is where it all went wrong... and I don't know who to blame. We had a bin cupboard outside the front door and had been told by the council if bin bags were not put out to the roadside at the end of the front drive they would not be collected.

So being away on bin day we had planned ahead and dropped the rubbish off at the tip before we left. Leaving a totally empty bin cupboad.

Now I remain speechless at what follows... the postman, being a lazy git was presented with a problem. He had a recorded delivery packet for us and we were not there. It was clear what it was as it was one of those bright photo bags with lots of advertising. So rather than take it back to the post office to be safely collected he took the lazy option and left it in the bin cupboard, scribbling a card for our letter box "parcel left in cupboard".

Then later along come the bin men. Again, like many council workers these chaps excelled in cutting corners. So upon discovering we had not put out a bin bag they obviously had time to kill and actually checked the bin cupboard for our black bag (be nice if they did this when there actually was a smelly dirty bag in there!).

The cupboard was bare, except for an upopened parcel delivered that day and clearly from the post office and containing someones photos. Naturally this was picked up and put out as rubbish!

In time we got home, discovered the postmans note but no parcel and eventually worked it out. The photo processors were no hope other than to offer us "some replacement blank films" (whoopie fucking do!). The council did a complete U-turn telling us anything in the bin cupboard can be regarded as waste and so chucked by the binmen, despite me pointing out their letter telling us if bins weren't out they didn't get collected.

Then the girlfriends dog died... the last pictures of him now lie in a landfill somewhere in their pristine unopened packet.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:16, 3 replies)

Let's kinda reverse the question for a moment.
I have a friend who I've mentioned before in here, who is notorious for his... how best to put it? His funk, his odor, his general mankiness. Brilliant man, fascinating to talk to, but his reek causes dogs to run and bury their noses in cat turds. His apartment is always a few levels beyond mere squalor, as he never throws anything out and never cleans.

Once, years ago, he had a pair of docksiders that he wore, as he does with all shoes, without socks. As he's in the habit of just tromping around through everything without thought to how mucky he gets, his shoes took on a life of their own.

One day he decided that they were getting a bit too squidgy. He sat at the kitchen table in the apartment he shared, took off his shoe, and used a butter knife to scrape a layer of dark brown smelly goo out of his shoes. And instead of doing what you or I would do and scraping it into the garbage can, he left a pile of foot goo on the table. And then left.

When he came home that night one of his roommates said, "Hey! You've been holding out on us!"

"What are you talking about?"

"That hash you left on the kitchen table! You've been holding out! I took it to Ron's and a bunch of us smoked it all! Don't hold out on us!"

He looked at the roommate for a moment, then went to get the butter knife. He sat down in front of the roommate and scraped out his shoe again, producing another wad of goo. "It looked like that, didn't it? And smelled like that?"

His roommate went silent and green.

He threw the wad of goo to the floor, where the dog sniffed it before eating it in one gulp. "Ha ha ha! Now you've shared some 'hash' with the dog!"

He's truly a legend, my friend is...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:15, 4 replies)

I've mentioned this before
A complete, pristine collection of every Man Utd programme from 1948 to 1991.

Complete.

All. In. The. Bin. By. My. Mum.

Thanks Mum
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:14, 6 replies)

A full set of encyclopaedias from 1912.
They were brilliant; they pre-dated the First World War and were full of cool diagrams and painstakingly drawn pen & ink pictures. I would spend hour’s pouring over diagrams of old weaponry & bridges and other such do-dahs. They were bound in red leather with gold leaf lettering on the spine. My twat of a mother gave them to my young cousins when I went to university. 13 years later and it still irks me to think about it, I mean really, what were 2 pokemon-obsessed kids going to do with an antique set of encyclopaedias? Grrr.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:10, Reply)

I dunno about 'priceless junk'
But my dad lobbed out a healthy block of hash claiming he thought it was "just a lump of dirt".

In some ways, he may have had a point.
(JohabMorelli is spenging merrily away, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:09, 1 reply)

Death Star Died
During those early teen years when my interest in Star Wars dipped a bit, I gave some toys to my wee cousin to play with, including my life sized Han Solo Blaster (got smashed) and my cardboard Death Star playset.

The playset was complete, in its box and was one of the few sets that wasn't a copy of the Kenner version ... only Palitoy, only available in the UK.

I've seen them in a few collector's online shops with POA next to them, estimates are between £800 and £1200 ... my cousin can't really remember what happened, but says it probably got left out in the rain.

Another noteable is my 'Escape from the Death Star' board game that my mum gave to jumble sale. I found out, went to buy it back, and she wouldn't let me. *** I just went onto ebay to get a price for one of these to add to my misery but found one at 99p!! - mines again! thanks B3ta! ***


EDIT: FUCKSTICKS, the postage is £6.50

.
( Cheeses of Nazareth Where's Captain Kirk? www.whereiskirk.com, Thu 14 Aug 2008, 17:07, Reply)