Ancestor worship

It's Saturday, but I had to go into work for a few hours anyway.

When I got home, Wife was on the phone with her friend Leia. Leia has been in town for a few days now, and they have spent a couple of days together. Apparently they spent some time apartment hunting for Wife, because that's what they were discussing on the phone. The thing is, Leia wants to sell some income property she owns in the next state over, and is looking for other property to reinvest the money. Since her mother lives in the same town we do and is getting up in years, Leia has considered buying an apartment for her mother, too. So anyway, since she was already looking at property, she seems to have taken Wife along.

I heard Wife (for her part) making some comments to the effect that it would be out of the question for her to share an apartment with a roommate; after all, she has done that before (three times, she said) and it "never works out." She also commented that naturally she would have to be able to pay for storage for all of her stuff as well, in order to avoid having to get rid of it. And the upshot appears to have been that (within the parameters she is willing to consider) she can't find anything she can afford. I know you are shocked. But when I stepped into the room after she was off the phone, she was weeping silently over this turn of fate.

I pointed out that naturally it must be possible to live in our town somehow on a limited income, because there are actually poor people in town. They live somewhere. But she repeated her saga of woe that nothing was to be found anywhere in a one hour radius in every direction.

Nothing?

Anywhere?

An hour?

Gosh, did they really travel that far afield?

And she reminded me of all the treasures she has to be able to house. I suggested to her that she has always said she kept those things because they are valuable; and in that case, she could sell them -- realize the value -- and have more money to play with. But no, of course that wouldn't fly: after all, she wanted them in order to hand them down to the next generation. And remind me: the next generation wants to have them ... why again? I urged that the physical things we hand down are always tossed out callously by that same esteemed "next generation" when they break or become unfashionable ... and that the only real, lasting heirlooms we can pass down are memories. She said, "Well that's the sort of thing D would do, ...!" (And she managed to squeeze a remarkable amount of venom into the name "D" as she said it. I smiled to myself.) But no, you see she wants to pass down things that belonged to members of her family, for no better reason than that they belonged to members of her family. It doesn't matter whether she herself even knew the previous owners, and in some cases she is talking about possessions of a grandmother who dies before she was born. But somehow there is a mystical bond that requires that the object be cherished into eternity. It's ancestor-worship, I think ... or it would be (would have to be) if she thought it out into a consistent system.

Completely meshugge.