Yesterday, when I arrived at the church for my stint at manning the Food Pantry, there were 15 or 20 large boxes of food in stacks on the tables. My friend L from church was helping me so the two of us started looking around and finally found a note explaining that the donation comprises the contents of the pantry of a woman in town who passed away last week. We sorted through it and put away all that still usable. We ended up with just one box of out of date bottles and cans [ranch salad dressing must have been on sale a lot in ’02.
I can’t get it out of my mind. So much food in one person’s house. All of it was unopened of course or we could not give it out. So she must’ve also had the usual opened condiments and crackers and cereal. She didn’t have to worry about running out of ketchup though – 5 bottles were there as a back up in case she had a ketchup emergency of some kind. All different sizes and brands. She had maybe 50 of those packets of gravy mix and chili seasoning. At least 50 boxes of pudding mix and Jello. 6 bottles of maple syrup – again no 2 the same size or brand. Maybe 150 cans of various vegetables and fruits.
Why would anyone need or want so much food in their house? Was she a hoarder or just forgetful? If you have 4 bottles of ketchup already, would you buy another just because they are on sale? Could you forget the 45 boxes of Jello and decide to grab 5 more “just in case”? Though she lived right in town, I had never met her and while L is always ready to gossip, she must not have known her either because she offered no details. For some reason it just left me with a very strange feeling.
