Feeling Risky.....

Let me preface this blog post with the statement that some things shouldn't be shared even with faithful friends and blog readers. People should have enough self-respect not to tell some things about oneself.

I know that.

But tonight I'm feeling particularly risky. Not to be confused with frisky.

Don't you hate it when you do one thing, but accomplishing it requires that you do something else, and that thing requires that you do yet another thing?

That's why I don't get much housecleaning done. It reproduces itself exponentially.

Today I could not summon my usual litany of excuses not to go to the grocery store, because I was already out and I had to go right past the grocery store to get home. So I stopped to get that onerous chore done, because I knew once I got home I wouldn't want to go out again to shop for groceries. I hate grocery shopping.

Because they had a good sale on cereal, I bought three boxes of it. And when I got home, there wasn't room in the cabinet for all three boxes.

So I started cleaning out the cabinet over the stove, which is where we keep the cereal. I knew there were some items up there that predated my existence in this house.

Did I mention recently that Hubby has lived in this house since 1973? That explains the harvest gold tile in the hall bathroom. We got rid of the avocado green shag carpeting in two bedrooms when I moved in twelve years ago.

But it can't explain some of the things I found in the cabinet today. Please don't judge me based on the fact that I don't regularly clean out cabinets that I can't reach. I just shove things in at the front and hope they don't fall out on my head next time I open the door.

I cannot explain the presence of not one but two unopened bottles of Karo Light Corn Syrup in the cabinet. Even before Hubby was diagnosed with diabetes, we didn't eat pancakes much. And when we did, we certainly didn't put this on them. He says his most recent ex-wife sometimes made pecan pies, and that might be why one bottle is in there. I would suspect that it's the cloudy one that dates back to her days here. Did I mention I've lived here for 12 years? I may have bought the other bottle in the throes of some temporary insanity that made me think I might make candy or something. But I really don't remember.

These cute little guys were tucked back in the corner behind the vegetable oil and some margarita salt. I can't imagine either of Hubby's former wives using these; perhaps they were a gift. I just know that I had never laid eyes on them before. Until today, when I looked at them briefly just before dropping them in the trash can.

This one is really embarrassing. Hubby almost exclusively drinks beer these days, so I was puzzled about the packets of whiskey sour mix. He said he and ex-wife #1 sometimes drank whiskey sours.

They divorced when my step-daughter was a teenager.

She just turned 40.

Oh.

My.

Lord.

I also found a box of instant oatmeal that I DO remember buying. The box said "Weight-Loss Formula" on it, and I remember thinking that was a great concept. Just eat this oatmeal and you'll lose weight. It didn't work, and I don't particularly like instant oatmeal (although I love the old-fashioned kind), so it got relegated to the back of the cabinet. Not only did it say "Weight-Loss Formula" on it, it also said "Best by February 2006." Sigh.

This one, however, takes the cake.

The only thing I will offer in my own defense is that there are inherent dangers when you get married and your spouse already has an established household. You can't go in and dump EVERYTHING in the trash right off the bat, because you don't really know what was his, what was hers, and what was theirs. So you have to kind of ease into it, throw things a little at a time so as not to ruffle any feathers. I've merely been polite and considerate of Hubby's feelings by allowing these things to stay in the kitchen cabinets for the past 12 years.

No wonder he pales every time I mention a new house. Our basement is like the kitchen cabinets on major steroids.

I think there should be a law requiring citizens to move every five years or so, just so they have to go through cabinets and basements and get rid of junk.

Particularly following divorces.