packrats

On the radio this a.m. I heard an ad for 1-800-packrat, a moving and storage company. I was kind of intrigued by a company naming themselves with something that carries such a negative stigma to it. It reminds me of a name that laugh-track sitcom-type husbands and wives will pull out when fighting over who gets to keep what in the attic and what gets sold in the garage sale, etc.

I looked up the work on Urban Dictionary, and among the more not-safe-for-work definitions that came up was this one: "a person who stores anything they acquire and will discard none of it." Also found this Diary of a Packrat via google.

After just the brief amount of digging it doesn't look like packrat carries the same stigma that I thought it did - it's more of an identifier, almost a badge of honor. Kind of like people being self-proclaimed tech geeks or indie nerds... in the end, it's a great name for a moving/storage place.