Taking a break from hoarding in Martha's Vineyard a few years and wrinkles ago

I try to be so organized and always have back-up supplies.  This comes from growing up in a house with 7 people where one small tube of toothpaste was shuttled from one bathroom to the next.  (No wonder I’ve had eleven root canals!)

When we ran out of toilet paper, one of my parents would drive twelve miles to the A & P to purchase one roll of toilet paper.  I’m not talking about one 4-pack of TP – I am talking about one ROLL of single-ply tissue so scratchy that could take the paint off your car – I think it must have been imported from France.

It wasn’t a money issue.  It was just a way of thinking.  A very inefficient way of thinking.  Apparently, my folks didn’t want to tie up their cash reserves in Charmin.

As a reaction to my upbringing, there are at any given time, 42 jugs of Wisk in my linen closet keeping company with 35 boxes of Crest. If our basement is ever flooded, we’d never know it because all of the paper goods stored down there could absorb the same amount of water contained in Lake Michigan.

We have enough batteries on hand to power a small electric car.  We stock so many cans of chick peas that in case there’s a national hummus emergency, we’re on FEMA’s speed dial.  ( As a corollary to that, we store an equal amount of Beano).

Remember the plastic sheeting and duct tape crisis we had a few years ago when the government had convinced the local populace that Saran Wrap could save you from a deadly biological attack?  We purchased enough plastic sheeting to shrink wrap New Jersey.

We have so much bottled water delivered to our house that the Deer Park delivery guy is included in our holiday card.

I thought I was being so smart when my son liked a particular pair of pants.  I went back to the store and purchased  300 pairs in the next six sizes so that I wouldn’t have drive back to Target for several years.  Of course, this strategy failed miserably when, the following year, my son decided he no longer liked that style.

Our family motto is the same as the boy scouts or the U.S. Coast Guard – “Semper Paratus” which translated from the Latin means, “compulsive-neurotic hoarder.”

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