I am a Toiletry Hoarder

Confessions of a Toiletry Hoarder

How did it come to this? Why does (even a family of 5) need this much lotion? Ten bottles? We don’t have that much skin surface area. This is in addition to the everyday stuff we already use, so I have even more lotion than this in my midst. I could have a Jergens orgy with this much lotion. And it’s not just lotion. I have buttloads of deodorant, scads of sunscreen, nearly two dozen bottles of shampoo/conditioner. I counted (not that I’m neurotic) and I have 75 rolls of toilet paper. I am ready for the zombie apocalypse. Hi. My name is Jennifer and I am a toiletry hoarder. I’m a closet hoarder (Pun intended), as in I hoard things that fit into closets.

Who am I kidding? I know exactly how this happened. The blame resides squarely with my mother. When she spotted something on sale she thought I needed, she reasoned that 40 would prove her devotion forty-fold. She wasn’t good for some things (She was the last person I considered telling I started my period as a teenager), but if you needed a bushel of jarred capers, she was your man. One difference between my mom’s obsession and mine is that I don’t buy things just because they are on sale. I suck at coupons and sales for household items. I’ve come to terms that this is one of many moral failings for which I will burn in hell. Once in law school, I realized my mother had supplied me with 1500 Q-tips. One thousand, five hundred Q-tips. If I used one Q-tip per day, that’s more than a four-year supply of Q-tips. That’s a lot of fucking Q-tips. I never told her I didn’t like capers so she gave them to me every year. That’s the relationship I have with my mother. A dozen bottles of capers I won’t eat. But I know she enjoys giving them to me and that it makes her feel like she’s helping, so that’s okay.