What Did You Do?

What Did You Do?

Mrs. C, does not like to throw things away.  She thinks there is always some value in everything. 

I have been somewhat successful in conveying the concept that there is value in space and value in organization.  But saving things and tossing them is always a bone of contention between us.  Truth be told I am not very organized myself and do think twice before tossing anything, but I am not as over-the-top as Mrs. C.

Mrs. C claims that she knows everything she saves and where everything is stored.  She does remember most things, but not everything.  For instance (don’t tell her) but when we get Chinese take-out she saves all the packets of duck and soy sauce;  unbeknownst to her, I save the new and toss the old or they would overrun the drawer. 

I do get away with secretly culling stuff.

Most of the time.

The other day I was looking for room in the fridge to place a new bottle of teriyaki sauce.  The fridge door was packed.  I decided to do some culling.  We had two half empty squeeze botties of grape jelly that looked well past its “best by” date.  Mrs. C does not use grape jelly.  I no longer use grape jelly.  I tossed one squeeze bottle, saving one for no good reason other than to not arouse suspicions from Mrs. C.  

I then found a canning type jar filled with an ounce of an indiscernible liquid.  There was liquid on top, and residue on the bottom.  I was afraid to even give it the sniff test…tossed it with the jelly. 

I still needed room for my new bottle of teriyaki sauce when I came across a small bottle with on ounce of pomegranate juice.  It was buried way in the back.  I had no idea what that was doing there.  Probably something her health-concerned daughter left and probably over a year old…tossed it with the jelly.

One day later I heard the dreaded yell,

“JOE!! What have you done?”

“What?”

“Did you toss my pomegranate juice?”

“Maybe.”

“NOOOO!! I add that to my tea…DON’T touch my STUFF!”

Crap, caught…Mrs. C has a thing about touching her stuff even when her stuff is garbage.

“I thought it was old and you wouldn’t miss it.”

“I put it in my tea…DO NOT TOUCH MY STUFF!”

“Oh for crap sake, you save everything, you save used paper towels.  If I did not toss stuff we would not be able to move in the house.”

“You waste stuff.”

“Well then just buy new stuff that I waste, for crap sake I could buy a garage full of paper towels with the money we waste every month on that damn storage unit full of shit.”

“My mothers bedroom furniture is not shit, they are solid wood.”

“No one wants it, your kids will never want it, and all wood is solid.  Storage units are just places where old crap goes to die!  For the money we’ve spent on that unit I could have bought several brand-new bedroom sets made of ‘solid wood.’”

“Leave my stuff alone, I hate you!”

“No you don’t.”

“Well I should…JERK!”

It was too late for her tea, but I went out to WaWa’s to replace the bottle of pomegranate juice.

We have this argument at least twice a month.