FTITCTAJ

[rolanni]

I have an embarrassing habit; I collect business cards. My desk drawer is awash with the things, many of them years out of date. I have been known to press a card into service as a bookmark from time to time, but I really don't think there are this many more books in my future.

I know, I should just throw them out, but -- it's silly, yes -- some of them -- OK, quite a few of them -- carry emotional baggage.

The admittance ticket to Lisa Snellings' Dark Caravan, for instance. Can't part with that. Gary A. Lippincott's card is just too pretty to throw away; Eiji Yokoyama's too funny. Hunan Legends has sadly gone out of business, but the card reminds me of the many fine and fun dinners we shared there. Business cards of managers and PR people for bookstores that have since evaporated or reorganized staff. Or both. Hard choice there. Bob's Bank of the Caribbean -- I have no idea why I have this card, but surely I shouldn't part with something so surreal? Certainly I can't possibly part with the "Get out of Hell Free" card; that's going to come in very handy some day.

Two expired driver's licenses for Steve; a run of our own business cards from ...oh, my. Nineteen-eighty through now, including the official card for us-as-Circular Logic BBS. A couple of execdir cards -- surely I can part with them?

And, of course, the card for the FTITCTAJ Piping Society. Can't possibly get rid of that one. A collector's item, and remembering the story attached to it always makes me smile.

I dunno. Maybe there's room for a business card museum? Yeah, that's the ticket.

Comments

[kinetikatrue]

I think there may be something of a mindset to this, actually. I mean, I certainly wasn't collecting in 1980, but for as long as I can remember I've been collecting movie and theatre and plane ticket stubs and business cards and playbills and all other memory-inducing bits of paper you could think of. And I don't even think of throwing them out; I like being able to look back and say - "oh, there's the stub for the time I got see X-men at the drive-in near Rochester and here's the playbill from my first trip to the Kennedy Center and oh, gods didn't I have awful bangs in my 10th grade school ID picture." Of course, these little bits of paper don't tell the entire story of my life, but they're certainly things to hang a tale upon and for that I treasure them.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

How about a scrap book? Protects 'em and makes it easy and fun to look back over them and reminisce.

Biz cards....

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

It's good to know I am not the only one with an embarrassingly large collection of ancient business cards.

I also have a couple of hand-written address books I have been reluctant to part with--there are people listed in there who are gone, now, and it hurts anew to toss them out with the recycling.

I even found myself leaving people in the computer address book after death--it was hard to delete them....