Sunday Scribblings: Collector Personality

My mom would never admit it, but she collects junk mail. This is the only explanation I can find for the mounds of paper heaped in various places throughout her home.
In the living room, there's a basket of newspapers covering the events of three different counties. Most of them have never been read.
On the kitchen table, there's a stack of retail magazines near my mother's chair. There's a Current, a Betty's Attic, a One Hanes Place, a Mary Maxim, a J.C. Penney catalogue (the Christmas edition). On the kitchen counter, there's three credit card applications, eight charity requests, fourteen sale advertisements, and at least two dozen more retail magazines (Lands End, Herschners, The Popcorn Factory, the Sears Book, The Lighter Side, Chadwicks, and on and on...).
Back in my parents' bedroom, the top of the dresser is buried beneath more of the same.

I can't understand the purpose of this excessive display of junk mail. And every day it grows. I worry about the other knick knacks and trinkets displayed throughout the house. I'm afraid before too long they'll be lost amongst the flurry of paper. The pictures of grandma and my baby niece, the statues of angels and little kids playing, the candles of green, gold, and blue, my mother's claimed collection of wrought iron tricycle figurines--how can they ever survive in a sea of ink and cheap paper?

But I've got a greater concern...the welfare of my parents. Because one day, this collection of junk mail is sure to band together and rebel. They won't be satisfied with owning the table, the counter, the dresser. They'll overflow onto the floor, pushing their way throughout the entire house, flooding the living room, wedging open cracked doors to find their way through the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the closets. My parents will come home from work to a party of paper goods. Mary Maxim will be hanging from the ceiling fan, scattering her bits across the floor. The Sears Book will be duking it out with the J.C. Penney Catalog while Lands End is working a concession stand, selling glue and staples. Mastercard and Visa applications will be hacking into the computer, racking up the charges on themselves under my Dad's innocent name. And as my unsuspecting parents open the door to this chaos, they'll be attacked by a flock of fluorescent pink and green fliers, and...

what's that?

yeah, Mom, I'd love to make a trip to the recycling center.

phew...