Today’s column is about stuff. The stuff in our house moves through a metaphorical digestive tract.
We pay for stuff we like and savor it somewhere in our home, perhaps in the closet or the living room.
Years later, the good stuff becomes old stuff. Usually it goes to the basement where a jumbled family room displays the historical artifacts of our 25-year marriage.
Eventually, the stuff moves out to the garage, the lower intestine of our domicile. It might stay there a long time, but nothing from the garage goes back in the house. The donation pile or dump is all that remains.
Every day we see advertisements for more stuff. Even if we don’t want to buy stuff, there’s literally stuff sitting on the side of the road for free. Relatives beg us to take stuff they can’t use, just as we beg them to do the same. Sometimes they don’t beg, they just die, and all at once, stuff appears.
It is a problem of plenty, a curse of consumerism. And yet, trends are changing with each passing generation. Economic reality is raining down.
Read my latest column, “Are millennials killing the stuff industry?” in the Monday, Aug. 25, 2025 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
