These might be kind of odd things to have kept but I just can't make myself get rid of them. I'm not a pack rat at all but these boxes of soda cartridges have been with me for over 18 years and made it through 4 separate moves. They were my great aunt's. She loved the soda water. Never bought it bottled, always made her own and was obviously thrifty about it because she had quite a store of boxes laid up in her apartment. They come home with me when I helped clean out her apartment after she had died along with the soda bottle, a painting, a marble table top that weighs a ton and a few other miscellaneous items.

She was an amazing woman, played poker daily well into her 80's, taught me how to play, never let me win and happily took my money saying that was how I'd learn the game. I was in my 20's when she died and regret to this day not having spent more time with her but I did manage to drag a boyfriend or two to meet her and she always cooked us a huge meal, insisting we eat until we were stuffed. My husband was one of the boyfriends she cooked for. Thankfully, she liked him and was at our wedding. I don't know what any of this has to do with those soda cartridges but they're tucked away in a cabinet and will likely still be there years from now collecting dust and reminding me of my Aunt Adele.

He moved in with me, it was an up and down relationship. One day out of the blue, he asked me to marry him. I said I wasnt sure, but we went shopping for rings for me. Shortly after that he left, knowing that I couldn't commit.

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When my relationships end i never find anything left behind but that i lost my virginity all over again lol

Uh... she left some stuff in the bathroom including one Costco size box of..stuff. Can I recycle these?

I couldn't wait to get to Jr. High. It didn't sound quite as cool as high school, but it was a start and that's what I was looking for. One of the first social events at school was the Halloween dance. Gasp. A DANCE??!! Like the ones in my Sweet Valley High books? Oh, yes, this is what was missing from my life.

My girlfriends and I walked into the dance looking for excitement and romance of epic proportions and, boy, did I find it. Standing in the corner was Andy. Andy was a brooding eighth grader with all the qualities any seventh grader is looking for. He was older. His hair was long and tousled. He was cute....I guess that's it. That's all seventh graders are looking for, really. Anyway, out of all the girls doing the Roger Rabbit to Salt n Peppa, he picked me out of the crowd. We danced. We laughed. We talked about "Young Frankenstein." Love at first sight? You bet your ass. As I was leaving the dance, Andy pulled me aside and slowly pulled a ring off of his pinky. It was silver and had an "A" engraved on it. His dad had given it to him when he was little. He looked into my eyes and put it on my finger. Could it have gotten any better? Um. No. This was EXACTLY like Sweet Valley High. I left that night feeling like Shelly Fabrey. It was all happening. The whole Jr. High experience. Two weeks later I broke up with Andy because he kept trying to french kiss me at my locker right in front of my English teacher. Gross. I was NOT ready for that. But, I still have the ring and I still wear it occasionally when I'm feeling snarky and ironically nostalgic and I think about that night and how happy and grown up I felt.

Addendum: I actually wore my mother's high heels to that dance...and they fit. Heaven.

Around halfway through a 12+ year relationship, I received a birthday present from my friggin' beloved via FedEx. We were in the midst of one of many apprehensive reconciliations and he REALLY wanted to woo me this time. Upon opening the package, I thought, He knows I already read this. But the card instructed me to turn to page three. Apparently Mr. King doesn't "do autographs" very often. I still have no idea how he obtained the thing, but it remains in my home, a memento of a very rocky, love-torn "chapter" in my life.

Dear Rob,

I know you've said you'll come get your stuff out of the garage but it's still sitting there. You've been telling me that for months and months. I don't even know what most of it is. I recognize a few car parts.

It's not a huge deal. I guess it could just keep sitting there but at some point I'll get motivated and decide to clean out the garage and I'll throw all the mystery stuff away and then you'll show up like a day later finally ready to pick it up and we'll look at each other, remembering that our timing was always off like that. Hopefully we'll laugh about it because that was just how things always went for us.

Oh, what the hell - your crap can stay in the garage until you get around to picking it up.  It might even be nice to see you...

My roommate in college started as a friend and became a best friend during the time we lived together. That in itself is a minor miracle. We had so much fun together, so many similar likes and dislikes. We were going to different schools so our apartment became our escape from the daily dramas of college life, boyfriends etc.

We had a very similar sense of humor and an identical love of comfort food. Tuna casserole? Really? I LOVE tuna casserole! And we made a damn good one. Next, we found the perfect ratio of marshmallow to Rice Crispy, the best brownie mix, the easiest Campbell Soup one-dish dinner. And maybe SOME of this was fulled by something other than a desire to cook.

We weren't regular pot smokers but indulged occasionally - not regularly enough to have the appropriate paraphernalia on hand so we had to improvise. And THIS is where something left behind enters the story. My roommate had long since moved out, I'd been living in the apartment with my new husband for several years and now we were packing for a move of our own. That's when I found it. Tucked back behind the spices in the cabinet above the stove, sitting forgotten for years: one toilet paper cardboard tube, covered completely in aluminum foil with a toothpick poked, charred impression in the top. This discovery alone would have made me smile but the details are what got me laughing - the carefully added silver wings and tail, the nose cone and landing gear - our very own, very handmade rocket ship bong. Sweet.

This picture was a gift from my college boyfriend. It turned out that we had a lot of gift-giving occasions really close to each other which got to be expensive especially since we were students. So I had the brilliant idea that we would make each other gifts because it would be more special…and cheaper.

I didn’t know at the time that Tom had taken up painting, which isn’t really something you just “take up”, especially when it comes to painting portraits. This was his attempt at copying a photograph of the two of us onto a canvas. Considering that my head isn’t twice the size of a normal person’s, I had every right to be offended at this portrayal of me, but I of course acted excited and stunned by his thoughtful gift. Oh, and I had to keep it on my mantle until we broke up.

I will probably always have this picture, mainly because if any of my friends or family finds out that I’ve thrown it away, I will surely find them digging through my trash trying to save it and it will then make appearances at every event, wedding, and family function for the rest of my life. It’s also always good for a laugh, so it often gets pulled out of the closet to show off to guests; I just have to make sure no one walks off with it. Oh, and I have never again suggested to a boyfriend that we make gifts for each other. I definitely learned my lesson on that one!