You can use a table for this, if you don't have very complex code on the client side, I strongly recommend using a table.
example:
local playerThings = {} -- storage place for player things
function example(thePlayer, cmd)
local thingCheck = playerThings[thePlayer] -- if player things are always going to be numbers then there is no need for "tonumber"
--local thingCount = tostring(thingCheck) -- actually I think it is not needed because you convert it to string type with concatenation in outputChatBox function
if (thingCheck and thingCheck >= 1) then
outputChatBox("You have "..thingCheck.." thing(s).", thePlayer, 255,255,255)
else
outputChatBox("You don't have anything.", thePlayer, 255, 255, 255)
end
end
addCommandHandler("mythings", example)