The Inventory

One of the things that foreign services officers are supposed to do prior to departure is create an inventory of everything they own, whether it will be going into long term storage, their air or sea shipment, their mom’s basement, or accompanying them on the plane. The inventory provides the only basis for a claim should anything be damaged or lost in transit or storage. There are different schools of thought about the inventory. Some will simply group things together in large categories – art: $1000; clothing: $10,000; books & CDs: $5,000; pots & pans $2000…. Others will fastidiously list every single item that they own – one red Gap t-shirt: $25.00; one black Zara blouse with silver buttons: $50.00; one pair white sport socks, hole in left toe: $8.00; one ceramic mug from 1987 Disney World vacation: $10.00…. I like to think that I fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. I paid attention when it mattered and didn’t pay attention when it didn’t. My friends beg to differ. I listed my books and CDs by title and author / artist. My friends claimed that this neither normal nor necessary. However, if my books were to fall off the boat, I would want to know exactly what was lost. One the other hand, I mainly listed my clothes with broad sweeps. Perhaps it’s simply an indication of where my priorities lie!

One thing that is for certain is that developing a comprehensive listing of everything you own is an enlightening process. For example, who knew that I owned sixty-one t-shirts? Yes, sixty-one different short-sleeve t-shirts. Red ones, green ones, striped ones, souvenir ones, gift ones, ones that didn’t fit anymore but had sentimental value, ones that never fit, ones that I only wore on certain occasions; all in all, all kinds of t-shirts. I don’t own that many anymore as I took the opportunity to get rid of several stacks of them, but there you had it. I, who always complains about having nothing to wear, actually had sixty-one t-shirts sitting there patiently waiting for their turn to be worn.