In defence of hoarding

Maybe you should never throw anything out?

You weren’t aware of it at the time, but there came a day when you took a tape out of its box, put it into your VCR player, and pressed play for the last time ever. It’s not really a memoir-worthy moment. That’s why you probably can’t remember it. Nevertheless, you slid from one technological era into the next without even noticing that it had happened.

Then at some point, as the movies you watched and rented transitioned to being on DVD, you probably thought it was time to throw out your old VHS tapes. They take up a lot of room, afterall. Your old CRT television probably went soon after that as well. Just another thing for the council cleanup – an easy and unemotional decision to make.

That same story was repeated in houses all around Australia. Who cares? It’s not like they were ever going to become Fabergé Eggs. Slowly, incrementally, CRT televisions and their ilk went from ubiquitous to uncommon. Now they’re almost rare.

But not everyone gave up their old analogue media. There are a few tech hoarders in the world – a condition I suspect is inherited. When my grandmother died, for example, she left hundreds of tapes on which she had recorded movies and shows straight from the television. I gladly saved them all.

Me and my precious CRT television

The feeling of the tape sliding into the VCR. The sound of it being grabbed by the clever internal mechanism. The static sensation of the CRT television turning on. They all combined, and suddenly I was a kid again, watching cartoons recorded from the ABC in my grandparent’s Castle Hill home. My grandmother is in her kitchen, having just brought me a can of Coke. She put a serviette around it, using a rubber band so my hands don’t get cold.

I wonder why nostalgia always has a tinge of melancholy to it? A vivid memory is a double edged sword, I think. You feel the past more acutely, and then its absence more acutely still. It’s like walking past someone on the street wearing your ex’s favourite cologne. Or prodding at a missing tooth with your tongue.

Happy, sad. Love, loss. Two sides of a flipped coin that’s spinning in the air.

This is all a very convoluted way to say that I’ve bought an old car. A 1992 Hyundai Excel, to be precise.

If you know that I’m an occasional motoring writer, this might strike you as an odd choice. The Excel was never a particularly good car in terms of… well… anything. But they were cheap to buy and economical to run, so they proliferated on our roads like roaches.

They were everywhere once. But what happens when a cheap car gets rusty? Or breaks down? Or is hit by someone at a petrol station? The line between ‘write-off’ and ‘repairable’ is wafer thin. That’s why the big parking station in the sky is filled with cheap hatchbacks.

The ones that do survive – and truly there aren’t many 80s or early 90s Excels around to buy anywhere – have been driven into the ground. This isn’t the kind of vehicle you coddle in a garage.

So imagine my thrill when someone offered to sell me their 1992 Hyundai Excel, with less than 30,000km on the clock. It was a remarkable find. A perfect intersection between my love of cars, and my love of nostalgia.

She’s perfect.

It’s already the best money I’ve ever spent. Sitting in a mint-condition 33-year old Hyundai is like being in a time machine. It is a full-body sensory experience.

Older cars have a particular smell – perhaps from the fabric or the vinyl they used. The seats feel different. The belts click together with a specific sound. The tape decks and knobs and aircon vents and steering wheels are all little time capsules.

There are plenty of cars from the early 1990s that are still around, of course. But as a general rule, the only vehicles from this time that are in great condition are the ones people thought would stay valuable. There would be far more showroom-condition Ferraris in Australia than Hyundai Excels.

But did you get driven to school in a Ferrari? Did you go to the beach on a hot, sticky Saturday morning in your brother’s Aston Martin? Probably not.

There are no museums dedicated to the small, nondescript things that give normal life texture. No one will celebrate the sound your childhood microwave made. Or the smell of your grandfather’s old car. Or treasure the Avon cups whose plastic edges warped in the washing machine. We don’t celebrate ordinary things.

Then suddenly one day they’re all gone.