by Rae Anna Blake

Created on: July 14, 2008

If you look up the work Pack Rat in the dictionary, you will find proudly displayed next to the definition a photo of my mother in law. I do not say this in gest, my mother in law is a true pack rat by every definition of the word and then some.

If you can save it, scrape it, wash it, reuse it, and find another use for it, my mother in law will find it. I have heard of being frugal, but there comes a point when it borders on riduculously insane and not worth the time or effort.

I have told my mother in law that if she could find a way to save and reuse toilet paper she would. She scoffed at me, but I know the wheel was turning, and the hamster was running in her little mind as to how she could rewash and reuse toilet paper and it would not border on gross and disgusting. Fortunately, she has yet to find a way to reuse toilet paper, but I know if she shows up at my door with a package of toilet paper, I will think long and hard before I contemplate using it.

She will pile up left over food in the sink and have a mountainous pile of heinus disgusting cereal with curdled milk, crusty bread, and anything else that you could imagine harboring in a soggy stuper brewing on the cupboard. Not only does she save this, fortunately she has been unable to find a practical use for this, but she will stockpile the left over food waste in a bowl and then she will throw it into a ziploc bag that oozing on the counter, it is truly disgusting, not to waste anything, including an inch of space, she will let that bag of swill fill and ferment until it is full to the tippy top. I have found that the only answer to this atrocity is burning the swill until it is no more, and so that the dogs cannot engross there intestines with the rotted trash that was once food.

My mother inlaw will scavenger through my garbage, through our burn pile, and through anything we may contemplate tossing away and ask if she can have it or take it if it has already been put out to pasture. She will find uses for little containters and glass jars that have no other practical use. She will rinse out and reuse plastic baggies that once held meat, if you ask me that is just asking for samonella or some sort of food cross contamination, regardless of how much washing is done. Some bags they may have only held cookies or crackers, I can see being re-used, but anything that held chicken or beef, should be pitched, but not my mother inlaw, she will use it until the cow jumps out of the bag.

She will take something broken and glue on something else to make it whole again. She will put buttons on the face of broken knick knacks to give them eyes again, she will paint something with nailpolish to make it appear as if a tail or limb is not missing and keep it. She has occassion to repaint, refurbish, reglue, restring, or rewhatever, in order to salvage a item that could be replaced for less than the cost of her fix, but you cannot tell her that. If there is a way to save it, she will be on the frontlines to save the broken glass, to restring the dollar store toy, or to realign anything.

So if you have anything that needs to be saved, dial 1-800-CarolCanFix and she will find a way to save it, scrape it, or button it. You may never want to use it again, but Carol will display it proudly on her shelf, store it in her attic, or make a yard ornament out of it, she is the queen of the pack rats!

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