Why I saved 30-cent salt’n’pepper shakers

Assortment of salt and pepper shakers at a flea market in Kansas. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Environmental Protection Agency/Public domain

The movie Room is about a mother and son living in captivity where one room is their entire world. The little boy is attached to mundane items in the room, like a toothbrush and lamp and bed. They aren’t just necessary implements for a boy who lives only in this one room with his mother – they’re his best friends.

When reading the book and later watching the film, the emotional attachment the boy has to inanimate objects triggered a sense of nostalgia in me because I felt the same way, growing up. Though I definitely didn’t grow up isolated from the world in a single room, I had that, perhaps infantile, attachment to everyday items. The cheap plastic salt and pepper shakers my mother used, the old wooden coffee table with the chip missing in the corner, the big orange teddy bear that used to perch in my parents’ bedroom ... they had value to me that was more than just monetary.