Don't Pick It Up, Don't Take It Home, Don't Even Think About It

Jacobites - Jacobites (1984)

No one was more passionate about their collecting than Philip, or so Philip believed. Stamps and coins and beer cans (pre-War, whichever War), worthless 19th century stocks and bonds, antique Egyptian pornography, other people's vacation photos - these and a thousand other obsessive collections were the boon and bane of his existence. One morning, though, Philip found he could no longer find the door to his own home. The night before, bringing in an armload of Victorian doll-diapers he couldn't believe he had been lucky enough to score at a local estate sale that morning, he'd bumped into and knocked over a teetering stack of Pop-Art styled plastic drink coasters. Through the night, the resulting slow cascade of collectables had effectively, permanently sealed Philip inside his three-bedroom suburban ranch with semi-detached garage (he had once hoped to eventually purchase all of the seven others in his cul-de-sac, as both a further collection and further storage). Every window, every door, every inch of wall space was hidden behind literal tons of suddenly worthless and frighteningly dense junk. The more Philip scrambled to find an exit, the more it all shifted and moved and trapped him. Finally, exhausted, Philip lay down on an improvised bed of kim chee cans he'd bought for their unique labels, which if properly arranged on a shelf portrayed the slapstick antics of a Korean cartoon character he'd never learned the correct name of. Staring at the work of a lifetime, he sighed and wished he'd thought seriously upon collecting can openers. But that had seemed such a silly idea at the time.