My husband called to tell me the movers put 52 blue Rubbermaid containers on the moving truck.   

“Fifty-two?  How could we have 52 of anything?” I said.  

“You bought ‘em.” 

Yeah, I did.  But I bought them one at a time starting five houses ago.  For, like, $5 each. I’ve used them to organize GI Joes and Legos.  My curtain collection. Out of season clothing. Tools. My husband’s college t-shirts and his 45s. Lined up in attics and closets and garage, the containers make nice, neat, oh-so-spiffy rows just like on HGTV.  They’re just what a good American is  supposed to have, right?  

But still. Those poor movers have to carry 52 Rubbermaid containers?  Plus boxes? Plus furniture? That’s practically immoral.Who needs so much stuff? 

I don’t. I guess I don’t. For the past four weeks the kids and I have been living in a house furnished with nothing but vacuum tracks.We don’t have enough stuff to furnish a walk-in closet.  

It’s enough. Honestly, it is. We sleep. We shower. We make spaghetti. We watch cartoons. More stuff won’t make us exponentially happier. I’m forever quoting to the kids those studies that say that once our basic needs are met (food, clothing, shelter), more money and more things don’t yield more happiness. I  can see  perfectly well that my neighbors with their 2500 sq. ft. worth of stuff spilling out of the garage aren’t any happier than we are in our parsimony. 

So why have I spent the past few weeks craving my bits and pieces so much? I lust after my dining room table. Every time I pass the four indentations on the carpet where someone else’s table once stood, I break out in a prickly heat. My kids long for their beds. I plan to fall  face down on my own darling couch in a passion the moment I see it. And I already feel guilty about it.

Psychologists and anthropologists and sociologists and all those other guys who study consumer habits can explain away this ambivalence. On one hand, they point out that we Americans have inherited the Puritan tradition. We have this niggling cultural belief that devotion to things is shallow at best, sinful at worst. They can prove than people who believe that happiness comes from things are usually the least happy people we know. 

On the other hand, these researchers describe Americans as the ultimate consumers in the history of the world. We’re bombarded (these guys always use the word bombarded) by messages of envy and greed every day. They can prove how our things add to our economy, our status, our safety, our contentment, even our longevity. 

Is it any wonder we have to have television shows and entire magazines devoted to the “problem” of having too much stuff?      

I wish I could say that we were the kind of family who found happiness and peace living with less. But in my heart-of-sinful-hearts, I know  the day my stuff arrives is going to be Christmas Day for me. As soon as those movers leave I’m going to dive into my 52 containers with abandon. I’ll find all those things that are useful or beautiful or that I love enough to drag across the country. Lots of things I’ll pack off to Goodwill and the AmVets. I’ll even resolve never to buy another container and resolve to do a whole lot better. Sure I will. 

But until then I found this great lamp at Target for only $12.48 — 75 percent off. 

You couldn’t buy a lampshade for that…