What kind of sick person would turn you in, rat you out, and tell the whole world that you are a hoarder—on national TV, no less? Boy, that’s hard to say: hoarder! hoarder! hoarder! Say it three times fast and you might get in trouble. Yep, I’d say reality shows have stooped to a new, and make that, looooow level, when they let cameras inside homes filled with mountains of disgusting, unidentifiable messes!

I mean, if you call that entertainment, then you should just pack up a beach chair, a blanket and some picnic food, then head out to the nearest landfill. Dude! On one episode of Hoarders, the folks cleaning up inside a hoarder’s home sorted through tons of tangled, bunched up clothes, whereupon they said they’d found traces of  (poisonous) Sevin dust (which the owner said she had used to treat fleas—do what?). They also found an odd assortment of decorative roosters. I’m sorry, I don’t get the connection; but I’m just ’splaining what I saw. It was too sickening to watch beyond that.

My marriage to hub-Russ would be over if I was a hoarder. As it is, about every six hours he cleans out the garage. That’s his domain—the garage. Every time we move into a new home, while I’m talking to the realtor and imagining, say, the sofa on a particular wall in the living room or the china cabinet and matching dinette set in the odd-sized dining room, he is alone in the garage, carefully calculating where his tools will go, his golf clubs, the packed Christmas ornaments and our freezer. But hey, that’s fine with me, because he always leaves me room to park my Ferrari. Whoops! Did I just say I own a Ferrari 458 Italia? I meant to say when  I get my Ferrari 458 Italia.   

Still, hub-Russ is extremely persnickety about his garage, especially when I put a case of books on the floor in front of his golf clubs or the food processor next to the garage door opener. But guess what the food processor is sitting on top of? Something he is hoarding that is actually empty! It’s a vertical plastic storage unit that he picked up at the recycle center a while back—what for, I have no clue. Talk about not practicing what you preach.

He’d hate that I told you this, but he recently typed a sign IN ALL CAPS (which I hate, ALL CAPS!, cause it seems like you’re YELLING AT ME!), that read he’d throw out anything left on his workbench. That’s because I’d laid some gardening tools, and yes, even bags of peat moss and perlite on top—but no Sevin dust, I promise. Well. I couldn’t help myself: I put his three iron right on top of his now empty workbench. He didn’t think it was funny. What a poor sport, no pun intended.

Both he and Katie recycle everything in the world! I guess that is the opposite of a hoarder, no? Find a thread on our hardwood floors and out it goes, into bin number three. If there’s a sales flyer with a 50% coupon in it, I’d better cut it out quickly, or else it also goes straight into bin number two. I wouldn’t call myself a hoarder, okay, just a little bit—my house is spotless but the closets are packed and overflowing. However, I do reuse certain kitchen containers, namely 32 oz. Dannon yogurt. When I wore braces for nearly a year and a half, I got into the habit of eating yogurt daily for breakfast. It was a no brainer: No chewing, no gunk between my teeth, no hard pieces to knock off a bracket. It was so easy and tasty that, indeed, when my braces came off in March, I’ve continued eating Dannon yogurt every single morning. So, yeah, I have accumulated dozens of the empty containers because they’re awesome for storing left overs, putting spaghetti in for freezing and even holiday coffee. I have them stacked neatly in my corner Tupperware cabinet with the lazy Susan feature. For some reason, this has started to annoy Rude Russ and he’s asked me—no, he’s pretty much demanded—that I get rid of them. He said recently, “How many of these things do you need?”  He does have a point. Never mind the fact that he has socks in his drawer going back to the early 80’s, thread-bare, holes and all. The way I see it, if we can get to the kitchen table for a meal, get to the bed for sleep and have plenty of room for our 4 and 8-year old granddaughters to run through the house (even though I scream, “Stop!”), we aren’t hoarders.

But he wasn’t buying my story. So, this morning I gave in and threw out those thirty nine or so yogurt containers, placing then in bin number one. But hey, fair is fair. I then made hub-Russ throw out those ratty old socks, placing then in bin number three. We may be a little obsessive/compulsive but we are NOT hoarders!

Ann Ipock – “Life Is Short, So Read This Fast!” amipock@ec.rr.com www.annipock.com