I grew up always being congested, and I knew that his stacks of newspaper had
everything to do with it since they collect dust immensely. My tiny room was
cluttered with his information junk, and no matter how much I told him
that I didn't want things that would cause my allergies and sinus
problems to break out in my room, he still wouldn't agree to take it
out since there was no more room around the house...

MESSAGE SENT THROUGH WEBSITE

This form was submitted:  Jan 13 2008 / 09:38:14
Daughter
HearAboutUs = Marie Claire Magazine
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My father loves to hoard information. As in any newspaper
that he can get his hands on, even if they are a month old, he will take
it in. In the house, he limits his piles of newspaper in his two-storey
study, the upstairs being the most chronic in terms of mess. His idea
of collecting information was to cut up articles in the newspaper and
paste it onto a letter-sized piece of paper.

When he had enough
letter-sized pieces of paper, he would bind them into a book.
In his endeavor to collect information, he loves buying books that he
never reads. And stacks them up in already filled bookcases. When he ran
out of bookcases, he insisted on installing new ones at every single
wall space available in the house. When the usage of VCR was popular, he
would record various television programs onto videotapes, and stack
them up in bookshelves too. I remember being embarrassed whenever friends
would come over. Because my father's behavior was definitely not
normal. No matter how much my mother or his children would beg him to clear
everything up and stop his habit, he wouldn't budge. And four people in
the house suffer from bad sinus problems, including him.

I grew up
always being congested, and I knew that his stacks of newspaper had
everything to do with it since they collect dust immensely. My tiny room was
cluttered with his information junk, and no matter how much I told him
that I didn't want things that would cause my allergies and sinus
problems to break out in my room, he still wouldn't agree to take it
out since there was no more room around the house.

I left home for
college when I was 17 and only went back every two years because I couldn't
bear living there anymore. I am always worried of what people will think
of my family, therefore, I hardly talk about them, especially my
parents, even though I am halfway around the world from them. Right now, I
am very glad that I don't have to live in that house anymore. And I find
that I have a tendency to throw out things at a whim, just because
growing up, I couldn't do so.