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canyonwalkerSpring Family Visit Travelog #8
Around at the house · Fri 3 Apr 2026. 4pm.
Today we're doing more cleanup inside my inlaws' home. It's not that we're throwing out piles of old newspapers and vacuuming up dust bunnies that have gone feral. As I mentioned yesterday, my inlaws have pack-rat tendencies but not the fill-the-house-with-crap type. Their hoarding is mostly limited to food. Despite being a pair of empty-nesters in their 80s, they have two refrigerators and a chest freezer... and all three are absolutely stuffed with food. (And there's a large pantry, too. Bigger than mine at home. Also stuffed.)
We see their problem as twofold:
So today Hawk, her brother, and I are doing their parents the favor of stripping the crud out of their multiple fridges and freezers. We're throwing away all the leftovers from who-knows-how-many weeks ago, the cheeses and other dairy with "best-by" dates 2+ months ago, and all the fruits and vegetables that have gone squishy with age. We are not asking the parents "Do you want to keep these?" We're throwing things straight in the trash.
In just their first pass today Hawk and her brother filled an entire trash bag. They took it straight out to the bin outside the garage to make it less likely their parents would go snooping through it and pull things back into the refrigerator. 😨 I made a mistake with a cleanup pass I did before lunch.... I threw things in the kitchen trash can and didn't take it outside. When we got back from lunch there were questions, "Why did you throw this in the trash?" (The answers were things like, "That mayonnaise expired 6 months ago!") They went picking through the trash can to try to save food. 🤢
Around at the house · Fri 3 Apr 2026. 4pm.
Today we're doing more cleanup inside my inlaws' home. It's not that we're throwing out piles of old newspapers and vacuuming up dust bunnies that have gone feral. As I mentioned yesterday, my inlaws have pack-rat tendencies but not the fill-the-house-with-crap type. Their hoarding is mostly limited to food. Despite being a pair of empty-nesters in their 80s, they have two refrigerators and a chest freezer... and all three are absolutely stuffed with food. (And there's a large pantry, too. Bigger than mine at home. Also stuffed.)
We see their problem as twofold:
- First, their habits come from times of scarcity. Both grew up in families molded by the economics of the Great Depression. Their parents ingrained in them never throw anything away that might still be useful, never throw away food that someone could still eat. With MIL especially this lesson is etched deep because her parents struggled to rebuild after bankruptcy when she was young.
- Second, they have a shopping problem. The scarcity mentality thing we've recognized for years. But by being here with them this week, and going on errands with them, we've seen that they're shopping all wrong. Again, they're a pair of 80-something empty nesters. They don't eat a lot even on a big day. And right now, due to her illness, MIL is barely eating solid food at all. Yet when they go shopping they go to warehouse stores (like Costco, but they're fans of BJ's) and buy huge packages of things. Loaves of bread, two at a time. Cheese by the pound. Chips? Huge bag. Cookies? A huge box. It's one thing to shop like this when they have house guests for a week, but they're doing it for themselves. For example, FIL wanted some peanut butter. He bought a three pound jar. If I were buying peanut butter for myself I'd pick the smallest jar, probably 12 oz., and still fret that it'd go stale before I finished it.
So today Hawk, her brother, and I are doing their parents the favor of stripping the crud out of their multiple fridges and freezers. We're throwing away all the leftovers from who-knows-how-many weeks ago, the cheeses and other dairy with "best-by" dates 2+ months ago, and all the fruits and vegetables that have gone squishy with age. We are not asking the parents "Do you want to keep these?" We're throwing things straight in the trash.
In just their first pass today Hawk and her brother filled an entire trash bag. They took it straight out to the bin outside the garage to make it less likely their parents would go snooping through it and pull things back into the refrigerator. 😨 I made a mistake with a cleanup pass I did before lunch.... I threw things in the kitchen trash can and didn't take it outside. When we got back from lunch there were questions, "Why did you throw this in the trash?" (The answers were things like, "That mayonnaise expired 6 months ago!") They went picking through the trash can to try to save food. 🤢
