Monday, October 16, 2017

What to Do with the Medals

Don't worry, this isn't a rant-y post about "always earned never given" or why we should or should not give grown-ass adults participation trophies. Take the medal. Don't take the medal. Wear it. Don't wear it. Put it a trophy case or a trash can or wherever makes your little heart the happiest. (File under: internet arguments I have no energy for.)


Emergy for a snarky gif, though? Always.

Personally, I kind of like medals, but I like them the way I like neat little memorabilia from cool stuff I've done. I don't see them as awards or prizes so much as souvenirs, just a little something to run across from time to time and be, "Oh, right, that time I did x cool event! Good times."

So, anyway. Before we moved I had a men's tie rack on my bedroom wall where I'd used the tie hangers to hang up all my podium medals & the shelf above it for some non-medal awards (which I thought looked reasonably attractive), & the rest were in a shoebox under the bed because I had no idea what else to do with them.

Then when we moved into the new house, I didn't bother putting them up because we were just going to start tearing most of the place down, so then they all went into a shoe box in the unpermitted storage area downstairs.

Now, here's the thing about unpermitted things. Generally 'unpermitted' usually means 'done by someone who is shall we say less than a pro at this' who is maybe not so great at things like 'installing proper drainage' and 'sealing walls and such against moisture,' so one of the key characteristics of the downstairs storage area was a faint whif of mold and/or mildew. Which is why any textiles that went down there were sealed in plastic bags and/or large plastic tupperware.

I didn't really think about this when I threw the medal shoebox down there, but man did I think about it last February when we had to clean the place out before construction started! I opened the box and was promptly punched in the face with a giant whif of wet dog smell. Plus the medals themselves were covered in a thin film of I don't even want to know what. I didn't really have time to do anything about it then, so off they went into another giant tupperware and into storage.

Very soon, though, the construction at our house will be kinda-sorta done-ish, and all of this business will be coming out of storage and back home to live with us again. Of course, the medals will all need to be washed first, which is not a thing I thought I would ever say, and maybe I'll put my same old podium medal display up somewhere. I'm not really sure what to do with the others, though. I definitely want to keep them, but I definitely do NOT have the space or personality for the kind of thing you get when you google "race medal display".

And no, I will not be turning them into Christmas tree ornaments or some other kind of questionable art project. I just want them to have some kind of real place, nothing too public or audacious, but also not the shoe box under my bed.

Internet: Hit me with all your best ideas.

6 comments:

  1. So sorry your medals smell like wet dog! No clue how to clean them up, though (we don't have a dog).

    I have a bunch of mine on a rack, which got full, so now I hang them on a Christmas tree (I have a "nothing but medals" tree). I put them away just like Christmas ornaments so it's nice to remember those races each year at the holidays.

    Besides that, I've seen people get large vases and place all the medals in there to make a display. All you have to do is drop the medal in but with the colorful ribbons and medals, it starts to look cool after awhile.

    Amy Lauren
    http://www.thetinyterror.com

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  2. As someone with zero sentimental attachment to race medals, I... have no idea what to do with them. I think mine are stashed in an old spike bag on a closet shelf. I might be sadder if I lost my favourite race shirts, or (this is inevitable) my best race photos! The glass-vase idea is cool though, and you race enough to accumulate a critical mass of the things; get a candy-jar-style one with a lid so they don't get all dusty or mouldy again.

    More outlandish ideas:
    Make 70s-style beaded curtain, but with race medals. (Clank!)
    Mount small curtain rod on inside of back door. Hang medals there. Use as makeshift burglar alarm. (CLANK!)

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  3. I used to keep all of my medals in a shoe box. Then I read Marie Kondo and decided to display the ones that gave me joy and throw away the extraneous ones. I did take a photo of the cooler ones before I tossed them. I agree that the vase idea is pretty good as far as displaying them without taking up too much space.

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  4. Hmmmm, I will have to think about this vase idea. It might be kind of pretty with all the colors but also meet the criteria of 'not audacious.'

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  5. I tossed all of my medals except my marathon PR medal when we packed up for our sabbatical year. I don't miss them at all. But I have a world map with pins for all of the countries we've visited on the wall, so perhaps it's just that medals aren't my favorite accomplishment wall ornaments and we have limited space.

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  6. All of mine are hanging from a curtain rod, which is pretty audacious so I put it in my guest bedroom. I like the idea of a giant cookie jar or vase. Post a picture of the final product when you decide what to do?

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