Tuesday, 16 May 2006 | Sentiment

"I can't believe you still have that," Todd said, referring to the 21-year-old Swatch on my arm. I was wearing it as a substitute for my current (but dead) Swatch, along with a pair of earrings I bought in 6th grade. I know how to keep objects for long periods of time.

Whenever I go to my parents' house, I feel compelled to rifle through my old things, to see whether my discarded clothes from junior high have come back in style, and to look through papers and pictures and old scraps from my past. I'm convinced this is why I have such a good memory of my childhood. (My parents are incredibly tolerant and have lots of closet space.)

This weekend, while in North Carolina, I only managed to look through one drawer, which contained old prom pictures (which I showed to Todd while he was sleeping), and a science report I wrote in fourth grade about color. (I'm sure I researched color not because I was interested in color itself, but because it gave me an opportunity to make a pretty book report cover. In fact, I showed so much interest in the report that I researched it using only one source, an encyclopedia from 1958 that we had lying around the house. The cover, though! It looked like the welcome sign to Rainbowtown.)

I came across something else in that drawer that impressed even me: a Ziploc bag full of discarded keys. That's right, I have a bag full of keys that open nothing, and I've kept it for decades, probably. Sadly, it didn't even occur to me to throw the bag of keys away. I just placed it back in the drawer and promptly got distracted by the elaborate headband I wore in my 3rd grade dance performance.