<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  I have been told I am a hoarder. Wait. It&amp;#039;s not what you think. Not one of those &amp;quot;I have carved a narrow pathway between the boxes of old coffee cup lids that leads me to my hot plate which balances on the arm of a cat-pee-soaked recliner&amp;quot; kind of hoarder. No, I am an email hoarder. I have a lot of emails. Whatever. Define a lot. Are 10,117 emails in my inbox and 17,596 emails in my sent box a lot? I mean, only 2800 of them are unread. I have only nine emails in my drafts, and all of them are written to only one person, my ex. Anyway, those are more of a writing exercise in finding nine different ways to say &amp;quot; If selfishness were a food source, you could end world hunger.&amp;quot; Personally, I think a single-digit count of unsent rage-filled emails shows remarkable restraint. But apparently I am alone in this conclusion, judging by the &amp;quot;concerned friends&amp;quot; who have diagnosed my email hoarding problem.  It all started innocently enough, with one simple AOL account, one with an obscure screen name that would let me go trolling in all those chat rooms I never actually visited. Nevertheless, that was my &amp;quot;real email&amp;quot; and I was sticking to it, even a few years later when I decided to get a Hotmail account because I needed a second account that not-so-subtly said, &amp;quot;Hey, I don&amp;#039;t want you to have my real email account, so you can write me on my free secondary account because, let&amp;#039;s be honest, we aren&amp;#039;t ever gonna be friends.&amp;quot; Alas, AOL became the butter churn of ISPs, and so eventually I moved over to Yahoo as my &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; email. I sent what felt like hundreds of messages to all my friends telling them to delete my AOL account and update their contacts list. But I became so paranoid they weren&amp;#039;t paying attention that I kept that AOL account for five years just in case they didn&amp;#039;t make the switch. And I was totally committed to keeping my shiny new Yahoo account litter-free, so obviously I had to open a Gmail account for all my mindless ordering of discontinued dinnerware and uncomfortable shoes because I didn&amp;#039;t want my &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; email account littered with &amp;quot;special offers&amp;quot; on the things I just bought. I couldn&amp;#039;t be bothered with unchecking boxes to prevent these &amp;quot;special offers,&amp;quot; as that cut into my valuable time checking all my different inboxes. I consider this a filing system. So, though I may not be physically surrounded by a mountain of filth, many &amp;quot;concerned friends&amp;quot; (read: busybodies) inform me that my email program needs a professional intervention. I think these people just don&amp;#039;t understand how I prioritize\u2014and will always find some reason to be judgey. What if something comes up and you need that crucial piece of information from an email received in April 2005? I never lose a wink of sleep over these things, knowing at a moment&amp;#039;s notice I can access it. What if I suddenly want to see that photo I took in the back of that dark cab with my two . . . um . . . friends, or my sisters, or, well, I don&amp;#039;t know who they are because the only thing visible in the picture is the glowing Applebee&amp;#039;s in the window behind us? That part is irrelevant because I have it! I have it because I had the foresight to email it to myself. I could never flippantly discard all those &amp;quot;time to check-in for your flight&amp;quot; emails. What if they invent a time machine and I need to get back on a flight I took two years ago? Who will be laughing then? And it&amp;#039;s always helpful to be reminded I missed My Morning Jacket when they played in Brooklyn four years ago. And at Madison Square Garden last year. How else am I supposed to monitor the career trajectory of my favorite bands? Everyone saves important emails to read later, when there&amp;#039;s more time to really absorb the information. So why do I get singled out as having the problem? I finally cancelled my AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo accounts and now just have my most recent real email account and that Gmail account which still serves as a nice parking garage for Groupons and political solicitations. Which reminds me, I have to search for that moveon.org petition to get a recount in Ohio so John Kerry can be president. It&amp;#039;s not like I save every email. I have whittled some down to manageable levels. After some housekeeping, I now have only 75 emails that simply say &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; and 43 that say &amp;quot;no.&amp;quot; And two that say &amp;quot;totes.&amp;quot; Actually, I am a little ashamed of those two. I resent being told I have a problem. I don&amp;#039;t know a single person who doesn&amp;#039;t have at least two email addresses, and at least one that&amp;#039;s stacked with notes and pictures they cling to like the last piece of the mast after a shipwreck.  So to my &amp;quot;concerned friends&amp;quot; who seem to think I have a problem with &amp;quot;letting go,&amp;quot; I say, &amp;quot;Take a look at your own mail. One man&amp;#039;s trash is another mans inbox.&amp;quot; I look at it as an amazing time capsule\u2014one that doesn&amp;#039;t require a hazmat suit when you open it. Lizz Winstead is a political satirist, co-founder of The Daily Show, and coincidentally, also a Twitter addict. Her book, Lizz Free or Die, comes out in May. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a11739/confessions-of-an-email-hoarder-8235551/>