Dead pets, virtual pets

There’s nothing like cleaning out your closets and packing up everything you own to make you feel like you should be on an episode of "Hoarders." For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it’s a reality show on A&E that features people so attached to their junk that they end up practically living in houses made of yard sale leftovers and old pizza boxes.

The Fiance and I caught an episode recently where a woman’s adult kids were literally shoveling piles of trash out of her kitchen that must have been there a while, because they uncovered -- a dead cat. Correction: HALF a dead cat. And when the woman was informed of little decayed Fluffy under her layers of garbage, she was disturbingly nonchalant about it, and also more upset that they had only uncovered half of her dentures set. Scary.

So, after that, we felt a little better about the things that we uncovered while packing and moving -- like a box of pasta that expired in 2005 (The Fiance and I didn’t even start dating until 2006!). It also made us feel better about the sheer amount of stuff we had (at least eight pick-up truckloads-worth).

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a packrat. I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder as much as overly sentimental. In preparation for the move back home, my mom and I cleaned out my bedroom closet and uncovered a bunch of childhood relics. Among the discovered items: a shoebox full of notes my friends and I passed in middle school (had to keep for entertaining reading later in life!), a bunch of old stuffed animals, including Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies and Kitty Kitty Kittens (kept the first two, sadly parted with the latter), and a three-legged My Little Pony (in the trash now!).

But the best thing I found was my Tamagotchi. This circa 1997 digital pocket pet from Japan was a major source of entertainment for me on the playground, and its theft led to what I remember as a zany sleuthing adventure that culminated in a dramatic last-day-of-school chase and me ratting out a boy to his grandmother. It would have made a good Disney movie.

Being the packrat I am, not only did I keep the Tamagotchi, but its batteries and the little screws that held the batteries in place. I popped the batteries (also 13 years old, mind you!) into the back, the little machine beeped, and a pulsating Yoshi-esque speckled egg appeared on the screen.

Barely unable to contain my excitement, I carried it around in my purse for day, keeping an expectant eye on it and waiting for that little egg to hatch. After 24 hours…nothing. I couldn’t imagine they’d expected kids to wait 24 hours for the damn thing to hatch, so I Googled “Tamagotchi 1997” and found the official instructions. Jackpot!

I finally got it to hatch, and as the little blob with eyes floated around the screen, the memories flooded back -- carrying it around clipped to my belt loop, hiding it under my desk at school while I played games with it. The excitement didn’t last long, though. The little bugger needed constant feeding and game-playing to keep it happy. When I lost the game, it scowled at me and beeped in displeasure. “I can’t eat dinner now, Mom,” I said, waving away the tacos. “I’ve got to take care of this damn thing.” I must have had more patience when I was 12.

But at least when the virtual pet goes back in the bottom of the closet, my kids won't be digging up its petrified corpse in 30 years.