Baseball cards are the only thing I collect, actually. I had a vinyl record collection that I got rid of after the fifth time I moved and got tired of lugging crate upon crate of albums with me. I had an impressive book collection, but I donated the majority of them to a library charity in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I keep my possessions to a minimum: too much clutter makes me anxious and I don't have a real attachment to any of my possessions.
Except for the baseball cards.
The baseball cards started as a bribe to keep my room clean as a child. As with most things in the Angi household, there was a huge focus on competition. My sister and I are close in age and though we have different interests, everything was a competition to see who could be better. Though she could beat me at a foot race, I would crush her at Horse. She would win at speed reading, but she could never compete at things that involved creativity.
Perhaps the stiffest competition in our house came with reward: the room cleaning contest. Whoever kept their room the cleanest would get a prize. Usually it was a few dollars. Sometimes it was banana lip-gloss (which is still my favorite). But on a day that my sister won, the prize was a pack of baseball cards.
