By Ken Rickard
Advertiser Staff Writer

I love my couch.

To me, it was the most comfortable piece of furniture in my apartment.

If you want to be technical, it's really a love seat, but it was my couch all the same. My dad bought it for his jewelry store showroom a while ago, and by looking at it you could tell it was the height of chic ... for 1979.

It ended up in my bedroom when I was in the seventh grade. It was perfect for a kid's room because it was brown and hid stains well.

When I moved into my bachelor pad, it was a perfect match there, too, because it was brown and hid stains well. It's been with me all these years, until I gave it to my friend last week.

And I'm having a hard time getting over it.

This is just one of the surprising emotions I discovered when I was moving out of my apartment last week.

In the years I lived in my Makiki apartment, I amassed a staggering amount of junk. Deciding what stuff stays and what goes was an ordeal.

When I moved out of my parents' house and into my own place, I thought I'd gotten rid of everything I no longer needed. But strangely enough, I was finding things that I thought I had thrown out long ago.

For example, I had a box of homework papers that I kept just in case my teachers weren't lying when they said math would save my life one day, or if I needed to tell someone that I want to go to the library, in remedial Japanese.

I also had my first Nokia brick-style phone from 1996 that I knew I would never use again.

Then there is the stack of magazines that I held onto in case I ever wanted to read Entertainment Weekly's fall movie preview from 1999.

I also tried to throw away my Sega Genesis that I haven't touched since college, but I thought I might have an urge to play NHL Hockey 92 and imitate a scene from the movie "Swingers."

I guess my real problem is that I am an emotional pack rat, or rather a person who develops emotional ties with inanimate objects.

When I began the packing process three weeks ago, it turned into a long debate on whether I still needed that box of Christmas cards or the Pac-Man sheets that fit only a single-size bed.

None of those things made the cut. They either got tossed, sold or were given to friends.

The moving company came last week, and even with a trash bin full of stuff that I threw out, the things I kept still filled a crate. Now I'm in an empty apartment, except for a suitcase and a sleeping bag.

I'm getting by without my stuff. It makes me realize that all things I had grown attached to really aren't necessities.

But I still miss my couch.

This is Ken Rickard's final About Men column for The Advertiser. He has moved to the Mainland. Reach him at aboutken@hotmail.com.