Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Mega-itis





I love the feeling of plenty in the house but I hate how it turns my home into the next episode of  Hoarders. I love/hate bulk, I love/hate warehouse places. You enter needing a few pair of underwear, and you come out with two hundred.

It’s Mega-itis.

You think if a dozen of something is good, then five hundred must be better.

You like turkey chili? Good. Because now there are a thousand cans in the basement. My husband has this house so stocked with dry goods that we could survive any leveling of this planet.

Red Cross relief needed? Just call us.
Peace Corps Operation in need of supplies? Call us again.

When I hear the garage door open after my husband returns home from his four hour Apocalypse  preparation, that's my cue to move the kitchen table and chairs to the other side of the room so that we can begin to stock up our private community food pantry.

I call our sons, and together, we help carry in eight 2-packs of gallons of apple juice, boxes of oatmeal that would feed the Salvation Army, and enough toilet paper to serve the Duggar's during the worst flu season.  I just want to know, is there anything my husband says no to at these places?

He tells me, “Well, it's hard, I don't like to, but I had to turn down the guy with the twenty pound bag of mangoes. I felt so guilty, not buying his stuff after I took his samples.”

I watch my husband then go back out to the van and then walk back in and then walk back out, then in, as he unloads his *smart buys.* Ten trips in all, back and forth to the minivan, each time with no less than a fifty-pound portion of something.

“Hey,” I say, as I help him stack 59 rolls of single-ply sand toilet paper into a pyramid against the bathroom wall, “what’s with the fifteen boxes of Frosted Flakes? You were sitting right next to me when 60 Minutes had that Doctor on “Sugar Kills.”

“I know, but I took a couple of samples from this 80-year-old guy and I felt kinda bad not getting the cereal after that. You know, I could tell his hopes were up after I ate two cups worth.”

I know what drives my husband and I love him for it, it’s the comfort of feeling he’s provided for us, and at a good price, too. But what really frosts me is this. Why can’t he go all guilty and #BulkBuy from the woman at the BoxMart jewelry counter? Surely he feels bad about spending time among the laptops and tablets they've got locked up under her territory. He couldn't have been deaf to her hawking, "Sir, wouldn't the lucky woman in your life like this $13,000 sapphire ring, Just like Lady Di's?"

Exclusive Mega-itis Edition.

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10 comments:

  1. Now if I ever run out of cereal, I know who to run to. xo

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  2. hey you have the essentials....frosted flakes and tp..ha, mm frosted flakes...and i like white chili too....

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  3. I need to be grateful, I know, but you guys.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAlll the things.

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  4. I might have to shoot him for the single ply toilet paper, but he's obviously a very good provider... and that's a good thing!

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  5. Until now, I can honestly say I'd never given thought to how much toilet paper the Duggars must go through.

    And now I can't stop thinking about it.

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  6. You have to admit that it's a great feeling to be fully stocked - that is, until the bloom is off the rose of the turkey chili.

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  7. If you eat all that chili, you'll need all that toilet paper.

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  8. I've never been to a Costco or Sam's - but now I'll feeling the need for a 356 oz jar of peanut butter...

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  9. I think it might be a guy thing. My husband admonished me the other day for not bringing home the family size Tostitos. What were we supposed to do with my lame-o skimpy 20 oz bag o' chips, anyway?

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  10. Years ago we gave up our Bulk Club membership because we could no longer afford the habit. Now that we're a little more solvent, we renewed our membership. Our first trip back was this past weekend. Now I'm remembering why we had cash flow issues back then.

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