Steven tries product placement

Let me tell you about one of my little quirks. I'm a hoarder. I know this isn't unusual behaviour, especially in my gene pool, my parents are both hoarders too. But this desire to save things forevermore goes just beyond the pack-rat, because when I like things, I don't want to use them. I just want to have them. This means I collect pretty notebooks but won't write in them, I have fabric that I love so much I don't sew with it, I stockpile cosmetics / perfumes / gift certificates but don't use them. It's perverse. But clearly adorable and endearing.


Every time we go to the States, we bring home candy that we can't find here. Tootsie Roll pops, Wild berry Skittles, Peanut butter M&Ms, Necco Wafers, Gobstoppers... And Reece's Pieces. My siblings and I still used to tease my mom because she would hide a haul of jelly beans or malted milk balls in her sock drawer. Not because she was gluttonous, but because she would eat a single one every once and while and stretch the experience over months or years. Oh, how we'd tease her for her crazy ways! I am now my mom.


Now, Steven is the anti-hoarder. When he loves things, he actually wants to use them / wear them / eat them. This doesn't work out well for me on the candy front. Once a box or packet is open, he eats surreptitiously with gay abandon. And when I decide, yes, today's the day I will have some of that precious hoarded candy, I find he has left just a single piece for me. He says, 'But I thought you were eating them too!' and I protest, 'No, I wasn't! I was saving them!'. And then stomp about a bit feeling aggrieved. My only defense to actually being able to eat the candy myself is not to open the box. Because of previous candy transgressions, Steven knows the decision to open the box is not his.


We are at an impasse now. There is one box of candy left from our trip (six months ago), and I've not budged. He casually asks, 'When are we going to open the Reece's pieces?' with increasing regularity. 'Dunno,' I say. 'What are you doing, saving it?' he laughs, tries to shame me with my silly ways. 'Yep,' I say. 'But we're going to the States soon,' he bleats, 'We can get some more!' He's getting nowhere. I'm not opening that box until it's past it 'Eat by' date and covered with strange chocolate mould. He's getting desperate. Last night, when I went in the kitchen to make the tea, look was sitting in front of the microwave:


He'd taken them from the cupboard hoping they'd trigger a subliminal urge for me to eat them. Clumsy.

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