The Never Bag

South Burlington, VT

I've written before that space is limited on a sailboat.  We had to learn that accumulation of stuff has to cease when we run out of places to store it.   That sounds like a hardship, but we found it to actually be a blessing because it helped us simplify our lives.   We enjoy the simple life and we've done better than the average cruiser in keeping out boat free of excess stuff and clutter.

We do however, have one concession to the hoarding instinct.  We have our "never bag."

The never bag fits in a cubby up in the V-berth.  In the never bag we store stuff which we expect to use "never" but which we are unwilling to throw away.  In other words, we cling to an irrational belief that some day we may find a use for those things.   Since the never bag is of finite size, it puts a ceiling on our hoarding urges.  Once or twice per year, I haul it out and review the contents.

Well yesterday it actually paid off.   Six years ago we bought an ICOM hand-held VHF radio.  It is our favorite because ir renders speech more clearly than our other radios.  Immediately after purchase, the battery charging station failed, so ICOM sent a new one.  It also came with a new AC adapter (the wall wart).   We stashed that in the never bag.  Believe it or not, this week the AC adapter for our ICOM failed.  We went directly to the never bag and bingo, we found a new one in less than 60 seconds.  Hallelujah.

Never Say Never