everyone's a pack rat on some level.

we each have that bag or box of things, that only contain sentimental value but never gets looked at.

for awhile i had a memory box, with random things that i would throw in, napkin from a party, a rock from a hike, my hospital bracelet from the time i went in for stitches, visitor's brochure from the Capitol....i started throwing in bentchers from the occasional wedding i attended, but once my friends started having bat mitzvahs i stopped, because the box got too full. in fact, at weddings, i don't take bentchers anymore. i don't need them to sit in a shoebox under my bed like sister 1's collection, and goodness knows, my family doesn't need anymore. we've got at least nine or ten from my aunt's wedding fifteen years ago, a good thirty (at least) from bother 1's bar mitzvah (four years ago) and the gift set from millers with the family's name on it. not to mention, bentchers from every single nephew, niece, second cousin's wedding or bar mitzvah.

in fact, i challenge sister 1 and everyone else out there who saves bentchers (if indeed there is anyone else who does this) and pull them out in six years and recall who each bentcher is from. it's kind of hard to remember when the girl's name was hudi stern and the bentcher says moshe shumuel and yehudis chaya rosenkranz, or something.

but i keep wedding invitations. i know it's as irrational as anything else, but i've got quite a collection. I've got every high school and seminary classmate's invitation, with the exception of the first classmate who got married before i left to Israel. (I've started categorizing my life into two separate categories; pre- and post-Israel, but that's another post) I've got them in the original envelope, in alphabetical order with the name on the outside for easy access. and i keep all the place cards too. why am i keeping them? i have absolutely no clue. there was one wedding i went to, and i got there a bit early, and wanted to double check that i was at the right hall. that was actually before i started writing the names on the outside. so i had sister 1 go into the closet and find the invitation.

who knows. maybe one day I'll be talking with my friends about our weddings, and we'll have a dispute over another friends anniversary. or where the wedding was. and I'll be able to pull out my dusty collection and prove myself right. or wrong.

it's not likely. but hey, you never know.