Hoarding Food and Coveting Toilet Paper

JerseyNana encouranged me to write this article so if it sucks.....complain to her, not me because I'm no longer responsible. It all started when I told a little tale about my hoarding habits in a comment on her article. I'm learning to throw away stuff but it's a constant struggle. At the age of 62, you'd think that I would have accomplished it a long time ago but I haven't. Once we were watching a young pop star in an interview with a group of friends. He noted his longevity in the pop world to which I responded, " I have underwear older than that guy."

Of course, I said it for a laugh and it got one, but not as big as the one Mike received when he chimed in, "That's true, she really does have underwear older than him."

Don't Save Food Forever, Toilet Paper is Another Issue

Food and toilet paper have always been important. I'm sure that it came from the fact that I was a single mom and those seemed to be the two most necesary items. I have items that I purchased and have carried with me for years. The story told on JerseyNana's site comes from that collection.

I lived in the same house from the time I was married until my daughter went off to college. Since the house was large, I refinanced it and bought two smaller houses in a larger nearby city, one to live in and the other to rent, then rented the house in the country. The payments of rent and tax deductions I received help pay my for daughter's college.

When I moved, it never occured to me to throw away anything fom the back of the cupboard. I even transferred a spice set that inherited from my long departed grandmother. It came complete with spices. Another of the items that I chose as a traveling companion was a box of vanilla instant pudding.

After two other moves and almost 20 years, I was hunting vigilantly for something for dessert. I found a box in the back of the cupboard and didn't know how long I'd had it but it seemed quite familiar and harmless enough. After all there was no use by date so it probably never spoiled.

I poured the pudding into the steaming milk already in the pan only to see what should have been a light creamy yellow appear as a deep butterscotch tan. It seems that instant pudding does "change" as time goes on and not for the best. I guess there was no use by date since the box was created before they put them on the containers.

After that I cleaned the cupboard and focused on paper products since they don't spoil. Toilet paper received my undivided attention. One of the best stories I ever heard about toilet paper was one from a woman that bought one of my houses. She was a single mom too and we shared our experiences. During one of her particularly economically challenged times, she would run out of toilet paper. In order to fill her household need she walked a block to the local gas station, used their bathroom and stole a role of their toilet paper.

One day as she was leaving the bathroom, she met the owner outside waiting for her. He handed her an eight pack of toilet paper and requested that she never return.

That story made a huge impact on my life. At that point, I began to see opportunities to steal toilet paper and also began to hoard it. If you stay overnight in a hotel, to heck with the soap and towels, take a roll of toilet paper. I had an office in the basement of a building and was the only one down there. It used to be full of offices so there was a large bathroom with several stalls that only I used. I wouldn't take anything from work or steal from a store but it took every power in me not to steal the toilet paper.

Just as I thought my resolution was about to break, there was a news story about a woman that worked for the local government who was arrested for stealing. What did she steal? You guessed it, toilet paper. The dream of raiding the bathrooms at my office faded dramatically.

Sometimes even fresh food is dangerous. Once about 10 years ago, while making breakfast, I cracked the eggs directly into the pan. Evidently someone didn't candle one very well because when the egg cracked it revealed the black featherless fetus of a chick. I don't scream....I NEVER scream....I WHOOOP and YEEEIIII. I made my way out of the kitchen whooping and yeiiing all the way and left Mike to turn off the mess and clean the pan. I'm just now starting to eat eggs again.

Still today I have suits that smack of the 70's and food that I won't eat because I'm too scared to do that. Does it stop me from saving the old food on the shelf? Well, not really. Even though I now date the stuff I put in the freezer, there is still one pack of frozen shrimp. We're naming it next year and preparing the adoption papers.