Monday, April 11, 2011

My dad has a difficult time throwing stuff away.  And he is a collector.  I fear we will be on the TV show Hoarders soon. 

When I moved in a tad over a month ago, I cleaned out the basement bathroom to make room for my stuff.  My sister still had stuff in there and I figured since she has been gone from this house for over 15 years, it would be ok if I got rid of her old blow dryer and banana hair clips.  I put them in a bag, in the garage, to take to the Good Will.  Yesterday they appeared in the house, on the dining room table.  Eyebrows raised in question, I showed them to mom.  Eyeballs rolling upward, “I told you your father can’t throw anything away.”  “But mom, you and I have short hair and dad has none.”  We both sigh.

Yesterday, he was at the kitchen sink washing off a couple of golf balls.  “Going to play golf dad?” I asked.  “Nah  (really long pause).  I take the dogs for a walk in the golf course (really long pause) and pick up balls as I find them.”  I asked him why and he explained to me that one day he may play golf.  (Recall my dad has macular degeneration and cannot see to play golf.)  He deposited the clean balls into the kitchen’s bottom junk drawer….along with the MANY others.

There are nine drawers in the kitchen.  Four of them are junk drawers.  Forty-four percent of my mom’s kitchen storage has been commandeered by my dad’s batteries, flashlights, duct tape, golf balls, fuses, tools, sunglasses, unidentified objects and a piece of old toast.  All her cooking utensils were in a drawer beside the stove.  Handy place for them.  This week when I started cooking for the family, I opened the drawer to retrieve a spatula.  I pushed aside a gazillion batteries, a lamp socket, shoe laces, plug adaptors and an old candy bar to find the spatula, WAAAAY in the back.  It was covered with something sticky and black and had another piece of old toast stuck to it.  I threw it away and used a spoon from another drawer instead.