Scissors Poll Results

The results of the poll are really close:

• 56 pairs of scissors - 27.3%
• 18, 27 and 31 pairs of scissors tied at 22.6%
• 13 pairs of scissors - 4.5%

My informal household poll:

• 13 pairs - Patrick (my brother)
• 18 pairs - Peter (my son)
• 27 pairs - Me (a lucky guess, before I started counting)
• 28 pairs - Mom, hoarder extraordinare

Here are all the scissors:

The true answer is 27 pairs. However, I found another pair after the poll was underway so my Mom had the answer pegged:

I am wondering if she really knows the answer to how many of everything she has. Inquiring minds want to know.

Three Vintage Treasures

Three reasons why I keep looking through the piles carefully instead of throwing everything out:

1. Alligator pumps and clutch, circa 1964:

2. White fur muff, circa 1920:

3. Fox Stole, circa 1930's:

Sorry no stories tonight. The result of a very busy and over scheduled day.

Did you Find the Ham Steak?

I heard the truck pull in late last night and excitedly ran downstairs to show off the (semi) cleaned refrigerator to my brother who had so thoughtfully thrown out the stinking meat the night before when my Mom was sleeping. Before the disposal of the meat, the stench was putrid and instantly permeated the entire house within seconds if you opened the door. My mother is absolutely immune to this. Good thing the neighbors are on vacation as I believe the stink of it would have driven them from their beds screaming.

Once the scent was semi-bearable around here, I decided to just jump in there and clean the fridge out no matter what my Mom said. No asking, just doing. I asked my son to run upstairs and get the Tilex (which I had used to clean out the disgusting bathroom a few weeks earlier). "Why do you need to use Tilex in there!" my mother demanded as if I was about to kill a puppy. "Because there is mold growing in there." I stated calmly. "Oh," she said and walked away and I knew I was home free. She was resigned (or so I thought).

Six month old Apple Cider, dated 2/7/10; miraculously unalcoholic

Cottage Cheese, dated 12/20/09. I was too afraid to open it up. I just threw it away.

What my brother later referred to as The La Brea Tar Pit -- "You could catch a mouse in that shit," he claimed.

Because I assumed my mother was resigned, I did not initially expect the intermittent disputes against the disposal of certain items. "Why is the rice in here?" I called out (My first mistake. So stupid to ask a question. Now she had the stage.) "Because there were bugs growing in it." From the tone of her voice I could tell that what she really wanted to say was "Because there were bugs growing in it. What are you stupid?!"

"I'll tell you what, Ma. I'll throw out the rice and buy you a new bag." (Second mistake. Trying to negotiate with someone whose truths are irrational.) "You Will NOT," she stormed in, "That's expensive rice there." Her thought bubble read: "Why would anyone throw out rice when there are just some bugs in it? If you throw it in the fridge, you'll put the bugs in a stupor (like you do with lobsters before boiling them) and keep more of the eggs from hatching. Duh. My daughter really is an imbicile."

We had a similar disagreement about several other items, including:

• two-month old, moldy hot dog rolls - What she said: "They'll freeze up nice." What she thought: "Some mold is good for you."
• pickles in a jar so old the cap was all rusty - What she said: "the vinegar keeps them preserved forever." What she thought: "You wimp. I'll eat those any day." My return thought: "Well, why didn't you eat them already?"
• italian sausages, five days past their Sell By date, no longer pink but medium brown - What she said: "These are just fine. They look just like they did when I bought them (as if she could read my mind noting that the color was terribly wrong. Even when reading your mind, the hoarder needs to be right.) I'll make sauce tomorrow." What she thought: "Look we can have a nice family dinner together."

"OK," I agreed. I later whispered to my son to turn down any rice or italian dinner offerings from my mother. Later, I told him the story about when I was a kid and my Mom made me eat really old sausages after which I projectile vomited my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

This is because the hoarder is unable to take responsibility for things -- sometimes horrendous things -- which may be their fault. And, as my brother said, "She built up her tolerance eating bad shit out of that fridge for years. You could drop her off and she'd survive in any third world nation."

And, "Oh, did you find the ham steak?"

Me: "What ham steak?"

Him: "Shit, you didn't clean out everything did you?"

Me: "No, I still need to clean out the door and the bins."

Him: "There's a really old ham steak in there somewhere."

Scissors Poll

Here is my Mom Pat, the hoarder. I thought you should know her name and see that she's a real person.

She was hamming it up when I was taking my inventory of scissors. She also pointed out several pairs of scissors right out in the open that I had missed. It's like a game of I Spy over here.

How many pairs of scissors do you think are visible in the hoarder's house? I say visible because I assume there are plenty of scissors hidden away I will never find.

Take the poll, below. I'll reveal the answer on 8/31/10.




Refresh Page to See Results:

Fixing a Hole

“I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in. It keeps my mind from wandering where it will go.” – The Beatles

Let’s talk about glue. Hoarders love glue. Glue is the reason for keeping broken things. If you have glue then you have the possibility of fixing things. Glue is the new hope. Glue is a rationale, a reason. It allows you to fill up the holes in your life with stuff to make you forget you have a hole. It is a longwinded way of avoiding the hole. The hoarder doesn’t really want to do the hard work of fixing the hole the right way, the correct way, the healthy way. This is why the hoarder fills the hole with broken stuff and then buys lots of glue and collects elastic bands and other similar detritus. This stuff gives the hoarder a reason, an argument, for why they need the glue and string and elastic bands: to fix the other stuff that is broken. The hoarder will rarely fix anything because once it is fixed then it’s a lost reason for collecting the stuff to fill the hole. The more broken things there are=the more tools for fixing that can be acquired= the more stuff there is to keep you from falling into the big black hole.

The Glue Pitcher


All glue goes into the pitcher. Do not touch the glue in the pitcher. If you do, you will mess up how it's organized causing severe stress on the hoarder. The pitcher is like a goldfish bowl, only for looking into at the pretty containers of glue.



I touched the glue anyhow, causing some subterranean strife but I was left alone after assuring her that I would not use the glue and would put it back after the photo session. (She rearranged it after I put it back because I didn't do it right, but she wasn't mad and seemed happy to have something to organize.)

Notice that the glue is all brand new. Only the Loctite Household Cement has been used. I'm not sure who used it. Maybe my brother. I'm also wondering where all the old glue is. I can't seem to find it anywhere. Maybe there was some sort of glue accident and it had to be thrown out which is why there is so much recent glue acquisition activity. Remember the box that came the other day with the red ice cream scoop? There was some U Glu in there. I bet she gets more glue over the next few weeks.

Replace the Ceiling Fan

I told my brother I wish I took "before" photos of the rooms I cleaned. He said, "Don't worry, it'll be filled with junk soon enough and you can take photos then." I can't tell you how hard I laughed. I'd rather laugh than cry.

My mother climbed the stairs slowly to inspect the "clean" room. This is the moment of dread, where all can turn bad. She stood for a few long quiet minutes (quiet being a complete rarity in this house) and said to my brother, "While the room is clean would you replace the broken ceiling fan." It was a command, not a question.

"What do you mean while?" he laughed. She laughed too. And we all said amen silently.

The reason the ceiling fan is broken is a mystery but I can bet that something from the very high stacks of stuff fell on it:



NOTE: This is the room AFTER I cleaned it. See the tall stack of linens in the corner? These were previously on this chair piled half way up the window:



The Missing Air Conditioner

"Oh there is Mommy's air conditioner. She couldn't find it so she bought a new one." my brother told me. The amazing thing about the air conditioner is that it's very clean - no dust anywhere on it because it was covered with so much stuff. I left the air conditioner exactly where I found it. You can get a sense of how high the stuff in the room was piled by looking at the photo:



The air conditioner is on the small table on the right.

Found Treasure

I read some blogs yesterday about children of hoarders and the shame they feel. I have never felt shame about my mother being a hoarder. When I was a kid I had all kinds of friends over and they all thought my house was a blast, a funky living museum. There are always treasures hidden among the hoarder's junk. Here are just a couple of the many treasures I noticed while cleaning out the small upstairs bedroom.

McCoy Vase


Nancy Drew Series (arranged in numerical order, of course)



Notice the stack of old magazines on the shelf under the Nancy Drew series. I bet there's some interesting ones in there. The magazines remind me of my maternal grandmother, Marian. When I was in high school in the early 1980's she had stacks of old magazines from the 1950's which she was keeping because there were some articles in there that she never got around to reading. She did eventually read the articles and when I asked her what happened to the magazines she said she threw them out because she was finally done reading them.

Genetically we're all savers in this family. It's hard to find the line when it turns from organized chaos to just chaos.

The Red Ice Cream Scoop

Today's hoarding delivery, via some sort of "as seen on TV" infomercial:



U Glu, three pairs of medical scissors, one set of very flimsy plastic kitchen implements, including:

• ice cream scoop
  
• cheese grater
• corkscrew
• other stuff

NOTE the red ice cream scoop



Since I just spent a week cleaning out the upstairs (so I can actually live up there) and disrupting my mother's "order," she's really edgy so I decide not to ask her why she bought this crap.

My little thought bubble mind shows me holding up the ice cream scoops she already owns (at least the ones I can find. I'm sure there are more that I can't find.)



I already know what her answer will be, "But I don't have a red ice cream scoop. I need a red one too."

And there you have it. The hoarder always has a reason for why they need something in addition to what they already have.