Hoarders. No! We are collectors. There is a difference, and it is a very important difference, especially to us. Our wives call us hoarders, usually while standing in a doorway with their arms folded and one eyebrow raised. We call ourselves collectors, connoisseurs, preservationists, archaeologists or temporary caretakers of historically significant objects.

The dictionary defines a hoarder as “a person who collects and keeps large amounts of stuff and doesn’t throw anything away, even as the stuff piles up.”

See? Right there. The word collects is in the definition. Case closed. Defense rests.

Our wives, however, see it differently.

“Why do we need all of this stuff?” they ask.

Need? That’s such a narrow word. “Need” is for food and oxygen. What we do is about possibility. Somewhere down the line, something in that pile will save the day, and when it does, we will be vindicated. There will be no apology, of course, but there will be silence, and that silence will be glorious.

Collectors understand the time element. This is crucial. Everything has a moment. You can’t just throw something out because you’re not using it right now. That’s like throwing away a fire extinguisher because the house isn’t currently on fire. Sometimes it’s time to let go, and sometimes it’s never time, because someday you will need that exact item, and there it will be, waiting patiently in the shed, the garage, the basement, 

Take my toy microscope collection. I’m a microbiologist. Of course I collected toy microscopes. That’s not hoarding; that’s professional. I had about 30 of them. Plastic ones. Metal ones. Ones that barely magnified anything at all but looked fantastic doing it. They were displayed everywhere: bookshelves, desks, windowsills. Some people have art. I had microscopes.

Then one day, a doctor neighbor came over, saw them, and said, “Wow, those are great.” And just like that, it was time. I parted with them. See? I can let go. I’m not irrational. I’m just selective. That’s what our wives don’t understand. We’re not emotionally attached to objects; we’re attached to the idea that someday they might be useful, meaningful or at the very least kind of cool.

Our town has a recycling station. That’s a polite phrase for “town dump.” It’s like calling your garbage collector a sanitary engineer. Very classy. People bring unwanted items to discard. Broken chairs. Bent shelves. Lamps that no longer lamp.

To our wives, this is where things go to die.

To us, it’s an outdoor shopping mall with no prices and no rules.

Somewhere in that pile, I spot something. A piece of wood. A bracket. A mysterious metal thing with no obvious purpose. I don’t know how or when I’ll use it yet, but I want it. It speaks to me. It whispers, “Don’t leave me here.”

In the car it goes.

Then into the shed. Quickly. Quietly. Before she sees it.

If she does find it, it’s like I’m on the witness stand.

“When did you get this?”

“What is it?”

“What are you going to do with it?”

My answer is simple and always the same:

“It was left with the house.”

This is a legally elegant phrase. It implies inheritance. History. Fate. Who am I to argue with the house?

Collectors must also live with the double standard. It’s perfectly OK that she has hoarded, OK, collected pitchers in fruit shapes. Strawberries. Lemons. Apples. None of them has held liquid. They are decorative. That makes them exempt.

And baskets. Oh, do we have baskets. Baskets on shelves. Baskets under tables. Baskets holding smaller baskets. If we ever need to escape the house by weaving our own hot air balloon, we’re ready.

Then there’s the coffee. We have enough coffee in the house to supply the local National Guard base through a prolonged emergency. Coffee with names I can’t pronounce.

When I point this out, she explains patiently that she drinks coffee “for my protection.” Apparently, caffeine is the only thing standing between me and chaos. I accept this explanation because collectors know when to retreat.

Collectors are optimists. We believe in a future where duct tape, spare screws and a mysterious plastic cap will all come together in a moment of triumph. We are problem-solvers. When something breaks, we don’t panic; we smile. Because somewhere deep in the pile is the solution.

Hoarders, they say, can’t throw things away. That’s not true. We can. We just don’t want to yet. There’s a difference.

One day, perhaps far in the future, someone will stand in the garage, look at our carefully curated chaos, and say, “Wow—this stuff is amazing.” And at that moment, it will be time.

Until then, we are not hoarders.

We are collectors.

And the shed is full for that reason.

Michael Kossove is a retired microbiologist and collector who lives in Sullivan County, NY.