Ice Cream Hoarding

I recently put some Caramel Turtle Cheesecake ice cream in my freezer. It had some friends waiting to say hi. 

Can you guess my favorite brand?

My freezer isn't that big. Yet, I do not want to run out of my favorite ice cream.

Hoarding runs in my family.  I do not kid. It runs strongest on my fathers’ side. They/we don’t like to talk about it. My father’s mother left two trailers full of stuff when she passed away.  Clothes from when her children were teenagers, broken kitchen electronics, several sewing machines, soap, trash, just stuff.  Lots of it.  Her children inherited the hoarding trait, especially in the form of books. 

Books are good, right?  Reading, information, learning, literacy, all good things.  Somehow that was translated into possessing books.  A library full. Not lying. Sitting with dust, cobwebs and mice poo covering those precious books. 

My dad hoards too.  He has a building full of stuff.  We call it "The Building."  It sits in front of our house. A lot of it is awesome, useful stuff. Tools for woodworking, electrical work, silversmithing. Some of it is less awesome.  A pool table that has piles of clothes on it, and a leak in the roof above it.  Piles of magazines, clothes, 100 men’s baseball caps, Franklin Covey planners, dishes, lots of camping supplies. Someone bought the building.  His children rejoiced, assuming the stuff would be gone. He bought two trains to put his stuff in. 

He calls them the connex.  "I have a drill in the connex." "The flower seeds are in the connex." There are plural connexes, connexi. Two connexi in his backyard.  Despite the threat to buy the building, half of it still stands.  The part with the sleeping bags, camping equipment, and food storage remains.  We children haltingly call it progress.

My dad is one of seven children.  I think one of them has kept from hoarding.  Me, my siblings, and our cousins watch the show “Hoarders,” and feel repulsed, yet comforted.  We are not alone in the world.

I guess I have inherited the hoarding trait, too.  In the form of Ice Cream.  I wouldn’t want to run out.