Hoarders: The Campbell Edition

This post has been a long time coming. Megan has been making fun of me ever since she moved in about my crazy hoarding tendencies. Truth be told, I’m not a hoarder at all. Clutter drives me batty and I routinely piss John off by asking him to get rid of some of the random crap he has sitting around “for nostalgia’s sake.” I once almost threw out a box of old baseball cards because, “I’ve never even seen him open this box! Why do we need it sitting in our closet? They are like 20 years old, none of these guys even play baseball anymore!” Thank God I told my sister my plan to purge them and she saved my from making that mistake…and from John either killing or divorcing me. So no, I am most certainly not a hoarder. I am, however, a bit of a saver…so long as it saves me some money.

You all have seen how I save money on groceries through little tactics like using meat twice for different meals, etc. Well, I may “double up” on other things in my life too if it saves a coin or two.  For example, a few months ago Megan walked out to the living room and I was organizing my “wrapping paper” tub—smoothing out all the tissue paper and folding the gift bags nicely and placing them in an orderly fashion back into the tub. When Megan realized that I save all bags/tissue paper and reuse them, she about had a fit. “Molly! You are an ATTORNEY! You can afford to buy $2 worth of tissue paper!” I, of course, told her that anyone who would buy brand new tissue paper was crazy. “Megan! I just smooth it out and people are none the wiser! And besides nobody actually buys tissue paper! Everyone reuses it!” She informed me that I was crazy and trashy and that she felt sorry for anyone who received a present from me. I briefly considered chucking my slightly-worn, sometimes-torn tissue paper/gift bag arsenal for something a bit more….new…until I realized that that would cost me money—and in the past 5+ years of marriage, John has sucked me into his frugal ways.  Reused wrapping supplies it was!

The other day, I was unloading the dishwasher when I realized that there were straws in the silverware basket. I opened the drawer where we keep our straws thinking that we must be out if John or Megan thought it necessary to wash/reuse straws. Nope, the drawer had at least a bajillion more colorful straws staring back at me. I threw away the washed straws and thought nothing of it—I figured someone just accidentally put them in the dishwasher when loading the cup in which it was sitting. Then it happened again. And again. Every time I would unload the dishwasher, I’d come across more straws. I finally asked Megan what the heck she was washing straws for and she replied, “Why wouldn’t you?” Seriously? “Why would you? We have about a million of them in the drawer!” Megan replied that “it is a waste” to throw them away when they are easily washable. I promptly reminded her that a) that’s gross because straws are all narrow and whatnot and I bet they don’t get totally clean anyway and b) they cost like $2 for 600—and we have approximately $15 worth of straws in our kitchen drawer. I then told her, “I can’t believe you make fun of me for reusing gift bags and tissue paper when you reuse straws!”

But it doesn’t stop there. Megan gets legitimately angry if I throw anything out without first running it by her. You guys should see her bedroom. She took a rickety old bookshelf that we were going to put out by the curb because she couldn’t dare to cope with the fact that a quality (?) bookshelf would be going to waste…never mind the fact that her room is already super crowded due to the fact that she refused to part with her oversized desk…that she paid $20 for…even though it had 2 broken, crooked drawers (note: it had to have cost her more than $20 in moving fees to move that behemoth). Yep, so now her tiny room holds 2 nightstands, a dresser, a giant broken desk, a chair, and a on-its-last-leg bookshelf. Makes perfect sense. When we were planning to donate our too-small duvet (we bought the exact same one in a king size v. the queen that didn’t cover the whole mattress) but nope, now we have a matching bedspread with our neighbor across the hall. And let’s not even get started on the Christmas decorations I decided I didn’t need anymore. Oh, and those old plastic serving spoons/forks I decided to replace? Well, obviously Megan needs them!!! Never mind the fact that she lives with her best friend…who cooks all the time and has plenty of cooking utensils should Megan need them. Nah, she’ll just store these puppies in her bedroom. On her bookshelf. Next to the reindeer stocking hangers. Let’s just say that Megan’s room is like a used furniture store meets Christmas in freaking July.  I’m sure there are a couple gently-used straws in there somewhere too.

But yeah, I’m weird for keeping tissue paper.