Hello - My Name is Debi, I'm a Hoarder

Illustration by Matt Muhurin

I don't know exactly why, but I've always been a hoarder - I mean you never know when you're going to need 378 twisty ties, or 73 rubber bands, or all the little scraps of fabric from a sewing project, 4 1/2 inches of elastic, plastic yogurt containers, pieces of old hose, extra screws from a project...

One of the odd aberrations I adopted early on is to hoard things I really like, and never use them. I mean I can remember as a kid having a favorite dress, or watch, or jeans, and never wanting to wear them in case something special came up and I would need them. I still do that????

So this morning, as I was cleaning out the fridge, I realized things are out of control. I make sauces, I buy sauces, all types of sauces, I never make just enough for what I'm doing, there's always extra. Condiments, we have loads of condiments. We have jars with teriyaki, chimchurri, pesto, salsa de chili arbol, guajillo chili paste, yogurt dill sauce, several mustards, jalapeno jelly, spicy conserva, a jar with bacon grease for cooking with, there's fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame seeds, miso, balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar, tarragon vinegar, olive oil, avacado oil, canola oil, sesame oil, molasses, maple syrup, the list goes on and on. I mean I will go look in the fridge and declare to Tom "There's nothing to eat", we'll peer into a nearly full fridge but can't find anything to grab and eat.

So this morning I managed to get rid of about 6, maybe 7 containers of stuff, but look at this, this is what's left.   I mean I kept one container with about 2 tablespoons of teriyaki sauce, it's good sauce, I might need it.

Hello, my name is Debi, I'm a hoarder!