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walkitoutI occasionally refer to my Pantry of the Apocalypse, and did so long before 2020 made it a broadly recognized useful thing to have. I’m also interested in other people’s backstock of food and food adjacent things. I _recognize_ that the Pantry of the Apocalypse is a problem of mine, but I’ve had a lot of trouble figuring out precisely _why_ I do this. So I thought, Self: You Know How to Answer This Question. Tackle it behaviorally, and pay attention to the inevitable powerful unpleasant Thoughts and Feelings that surface.
So, it turns out they are not particularly powerful or unpleasant. It seems to be just one, basically reasonable principle, that is actually completely bonkers if you try to implement it. “Let’s just have everything that anyone might want.”
Yeah. Don’t do that.
Obviously, I’ve been doing this for a really long time so I’ve _also_ been training the people around me to do the same thing and also this is influencing who hangs out with me and who runs away in terror or annoyance or whatever. So, in addition to step zero — make sure not to freak out whatever part inside me still thinks this is a good idea, despite the obvious negatives — I’m also working on step one, which is consciously and clearly communicating that I do NOT want certain things replenished as they are used up.
Anyone who has this basic idea — the, “Let’s just have everything that anyone might want” idea — is going to be an absolutely epic and unsustainable horror show of a hoarder if implemented in the simplest way possible (“Buy everything in the grocery store.”). I like cooking as a creative and learning activity, because the results either go bad or are consumed in a comparatively short period of time (vs. say, clay sculpture or watercolors or knitting). Also, I get a huge kick out of figuring out how to substitute for things, and how to make things that normally someone would just buy. My version of “Let’s just have …” has thus been more about the inputs to Everything In the Grocery Store, and less about having every single kind of oreo known to humanity. ALSO! My kids are not (yet) adventurous eaters.
I initially framed this as a thing that _helped_ with the issue in question, but of course, that is probably a big chunk of why I kept doing this for so long.
I had a lovely conversation with J. yesterday, which is the first time I’ve articulated this basic insight to anyone outside my immediate family. There was a long pause, and then she very kindly observed that actually this Genuinely Terrible Idea sounded pretty good. So that made me feel a lot better. It is very easy to fall into this mistake! Fortunately, most people don’t then go acting on it.
Unfortunately, it does make it a little tricky to figure out how to completely extricate myself from it.
I am going to continue with the behavioral approach, of using things up and NOT replenishing them, unless someone in the house really wants them AND substituting around it is ineffective. Parts of that project have been absolutely hysterical. Like, we have a massive snack drawer that I only rarely ate anything out of, and which, while hidden from view, still was a real issue for R. I just quit buying snacks for it and quit putting things that were used up on the shopping list. If the kids asked for it, we’d put it on the list, but otherwise, nope. I’d offer things like popcorn or blondies instead (I always have homemade blondies in the freezer and that is _not_ going to change), or offer to bake something or whatever. R. has taken to restocking that drawer in a much more restrained fashion, and also, there are now a bunch of different kinds of nuts in there, along with dried fruit, so that has been fun to watch happen. No one in the house eats cereal in the morning, but we do have cereal, because sometimes people will have it as a snack or a meal later in the day. Lately, I’ve been watching A. treat the cheerios like she used to eat potato chips. I’ve started offering her a half an apple when she gets past the second bowl, and that seems to work out well.
I am also still stocking cases of things that are difficult to get and important to me (no-salt-added mustard and tomato product, mostly; if you just buy what the store has, even the reduced sodium versions have enough sodium in them to cause me problems, and I really want the organic as well).
So, it turns out they are not particularly powerful or unpleasant. It seems to be just one, basically reasonable principle, that is actually completely bonkers if you try to implement it. “Let’s just have everything that anyone might want.”
Yeah. Don’t do that.
Obviously, I’ve been doing this for a really long time so I’ve _also_ been training the people around me to do the same thing and also this is influencing who hangs out with me and who runs away in terror or annoyance or whatever. So, in addition to step zero — make sure not to freak out whatever part inside me still thinks this is a good idea, despite the obvious negatives — I’m also working on step one, which is consciously and clearly communicating that I do NOT want certain things replenished as they are used up.
Anyone who has this basic idea — the, “Let’s just have everything that anyone might want” idea — is going to be an absolutely epic and unsustainable horror show of a hoarder if implemented in the simplest way possible (“Buy everything in the grocery store.”). I like cooking as a creative and learning activity, because the results either go bad or are consumed in a comparatively short period of time (vs. say, clay sculpture or watercolors or knitting). Also, I get a huge kick out of figuring out how to substitute for things, and how to make things that normally someone would just buy. My version of “Let’s just have …” has thus been more about the inputs to Everything In the Grocery Store, and less about having every single kind of oreo known to humanity. ALSO! My kids are not (yet) adventurous eaters.
I initially framed this as a thing that _helped_ with the issue in question, but of course, that is probably a big chunk of why I kept doing this for so long.
I had a lovely conversation with J. yesterday, which is the first time I’ve articulated this basic insight to anyone outside my immediate family. There was a long pause, and then she very kindly observed that actually this Genuinely Terrible Idea sounded pretty good. So that made me feel a lot better. It is very easy to fall into this mistake! Fortunately, most people don’t then go acting on it.
Unfortunately, it does make it a little tricky to figure out how to completely extricate myself from it.
I am going to continue with the behavioral approach, of using things up and NOT replenishing them, unless someone in the house really wants them AND substituting around it is ineffective. Parts of that project have been absolutely hysterical. Like, we have a massive snack drawer that I only rarely ate anything out of, and which, while hidden from view, still was a real issue for R. I just quit buying snacks for it and quit putting things that were used up on the shopping list. If the kids asked for it, we’d put it on the list, but otherwise, nope. I’d offer things like popcorn or blondies instead (I always have homemade blondies in the freezer and that is _not_ going to change), or offer to bake something or whatever. R. has taken to restocking that drawer in a much more restrained fashion, and also, there are now a bunch of different kinds of nuts in there, along with dried fruit, so that has been fun to watch happen. No one in the house eats cereal in the morning, but we do have cereal, because sometimes people will have it as a snack or a meal later in the day. Lately, I’ve been watching A. treat the cheerios like she used to eat potato chips. I’ve started offering her a half an apple when she gets past the second bowl, and that seems to work out well.
I am also still stocking cases of things that are difficult to get and important to me (no-salt-added mustard and tomato product, mostly; if you just buy what the store has, even the reduced sodium versions have enough sodium in them to cause me problems, and I really want the organic as well).