Tchotchke

Whoops! Maybe you were looking for Bankruptcy?

Your parents bought this for you at the convenience store when you were just 8. Now you are 80 and it’s been sitting in a shoebox for decades. And most of the time, you don’t even know you have it. You come across it every so many years when going through your belongings, but still can’t part with it. You can’t take it to your grave, but you can’t give it to your great grandson either.

A tchotchke (also spelled chochka, or at least that’s how most people pronounce it) is a cheap consumer good that is worth little if anything, but is nevertheless so attractive that you feel you must have it. You urgently feel the need to buy it when you see it, so much that you borrow money, go into debt, and in some cases steal the money to be able to have it. But once you own it, you feel you can never get rid of it, even if years go by without you even using it.

We all have lots of tchotchkes in our homes. So many that the average house is built with extra rooms to accommodate all our tchotchkes. In each room, we have lots of storage space for all those tchotchkes. We have overflowing boxes and cabinets and closets. Many more tchotchkes are found under the bed. Most of these tchotchkes we don’t even remember we own.

Tchotchkes are one of the main drivers of the economy. Lots and lots of people earn their livelihood by selling tchotchkes. And they spend the money they earn selling tchotchkes to buy lots of tchotchkes of their own. Those who can afford it sell their old houses and move into much larger houses only to accommodate their tchotchkes collections. The appetite for tchotchkes leads so many people to work for many more years before they can afford to retire.

The word tchotchke comes from the Chinese language. In Chinese, tchotch (pronounced “choch”) is the word for plastic, and the suffix -ke refers to something being cheap. Since most tchotchkes are made in China and are made of plastic, tchotchke became the word in English for cheap goods made of plastic that are worthless.

Types of tchotchkes

Toys

“How do I get my child to behave?”

~ Give them a toy

“I don’t want to grow up. I want to be a Toys Я Us kid.”

~ Oscar Wilde

A toy is a tchotchke for a child to play with. Or an adult who has never outgrown childhood. Toys do not accomplish anything productive. But they can make a child stop crying when they are having a tantrum.

A child who has been given a toy will get bored of that toy after 5 minutes. And the only way to stop them from being bored is by giving them another toy. And another toy. Before long, they have so many toys, you need to rent a storage locker for their toys.

Merch

“My fame is going away. How do I make money now?”

~ Sell your merch?

Merch (short for merchandise) are tchotchkes bearing the name of the subject it represents. Merch can include T-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads, and other common object that are cheap to manufacture and easy to obtain, but are marked up for a lot of money when branded a certain way.

Merch is often sold by those who have been famous at one time, but their fame has dwindled. They still have a small fan base, and though their merch won’t make them the money they need to pay the mortgage on their $2 billion mansion, it will at least pay 10% of the electric bill.

Merch is also sold by those who wanted to get famous but couldn’t. It won’t buy you that $2 million mansion that you dreamed of having if you were to have made it in Hollywood. But from that small fan base you do have, it could enable you to treat someone to dinner, making them think you are rich.

Souvenirs

Souvenirs have the names of any place you go printed on them. But they are all made in the same country.

A souvenir is a tchotchke you obtain during your travels. They are sold at tourist traps where vendors are desperate to make money somehow.

Souvenirs are cheap to buy. Some of them are so cheap, you need only an hour at minimum wage to afford them. But they are a status symbol that makes you appear rich. Unlike houses, which require upkeep and that can be found in neighborhoods that go downhill, and unlike cars, which lose a third of their value the moment you drive them off the lot, cheap souvenirs look good forever as long as you dust them off once a month. Put them on display and they give others the impression you are rich because you had the money to travel far from home. World travel is expensive, sometimes more than the cost of a Lexus. And if you have something to show others you have traveled, you can impress them.

Souvenirs can be found with the names of just about any country printed on them, provided that you travel to that country. But they are all made in the same country. And if you were paying attention, you know what country that is.

Displaying your tchotchke

Some people like to proudly display their collection of tchotchkes, believing their living room is like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The entire collection they have of tchotchkes on display is worth less than a pair of socks bought at Walmart. But the owner thinks the value is worth more than all of Elon Musk’s assets.

When a guest comes over to see the living room display that the homeowner has put together so elaborately, the homeowner is waiting for their guest to look at the display so excitedly. But the guest takes no notice of the display. The guest simply does not care.

It’ll take a long time before the next guest comes over. Perhaps 5, 7, or even 13 months, or longer. Usually it is the meter reader who runs in and out. Unless it is a bill collector, looking to see what they can seize to satisfy your debt caused by buying so many tchotchkes. But those tchotchkes are of no interest to that bill collector because they have no resale value.

Selling your tschatschkes

“I can’t pay my bills. What do I do now?”

~ Sell your tchotchkes

“Where do I sell my tchotchkes?”

~ At the flea market

If you are unlucky enough to fall on hard times and to struggle to pay your bills, you might try to sell your tchotchkes at a flea market. Tchotchkes that at one time you paid $5, $10, $20, or more for might not even resell for $1. You will take a big loss. But it’ll help you pay your bills. And you will feel depressed.

Effect on death

When a tchotchke collector dies, their loved ones are left with the task of going through their tchotchke collection. What typically happens is the loved one has no interest in most of their tchotchkes. The owner of the tchotchkes cannot take their tchotchkes to their grave. And their heirs are left with the task of sorting through them. This often means giving or throwing them away.

If the tchotchke collector is unlucky enough to develop dementia, leading to loss of control over your belongings, your tchotchke collection can face an early end. You could still be alive and breathing. And you will have no awareness someone went and threw away all your precious tchotchkes.