The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 21

Why Do We Have So Much Stuff?!

Today, I finally crossed a chore off my to-do list that has been on it since Thanksgiving weekend. I cleaned the bathroom. --No, don't be ridiculous; of course I've cleaned the sink and mirror and shower and toilet since Thanksgiving.-- But what I haven't cleaned is the linen closet/storage and the vanity drawers and shelves. In fact, I haven't cleaned those out in at least a year, if not two. What was once a fairly coherent storage system had morphed into plastic bags and boxes and cartons of crap, all shoved onto the shelves and into the bins. Need a chap stick? Good luck. I know we have at least 10 of them because I buy in bulk, but you're gonna have to dig. Out of conditioner? I know that I have purchased a bottle each and every time I've gone to the store, so there's a lot of conditioner in there somewhere. Just keep digging.

I list for you, in no particular order, some of the things I found.

4 bottles of conditioner, 3 bottles of curl cream, 2 spray bottles of curl booster, 2 cans of hair spray, 2 tubes of hair gel, 2 jars of hair paste, and 2 samples of "blow straight" smoothing cream (for whom??!!).

4 bottles of blue hair dye and 3 bottles of purple hair dye.

An unopened Madison Reid kit of auburn hair dye.

Hair chalk.

16 chap sticks.

32 hair elastics and 19 barrettes.

An RBG set of glasses and decorative collar; a Frida Kahlo flowered headband.

14 hotel shampoos, 12 hotel conditioners, 3 hotel lotions, 1 hotel body wash, 8 hotel soaps.

An entire storage container of girls' headbands and hair accessories.

5 glasses cases. (1 with glasses!)

4 boxes of tampons. 3 boxes of pads.

3 bottles of mouthwash. 7 toothbrushes. 17 containers of floss. (We really need to floss more.)

7 bars of soap.

5 nail clippers (2 big, 3 small).

5 cans of bug spray (it doesn't even belong in the bathroom!) and 2 tubes of sun screen (again, does NOT belong in the bathroom).

2 bottles of self-tanner, 2 bottles of "skin tightener," 4 jars of night cream.

A can of dry shampoo. (What is this and why is it in my house? I have never used dry shampoo in my life. If I'm not gonna wash my hair, I'm just straight up not gonna wash it.)

Why do we have all this stuff?! I know why. Because I am always so constantly busy that things just get tossed in the bottom of the linen closet or into the drawers and then, when we can't find the nail clippers, I buy more. And then the piles of stuff become so overwhelming that it takes me a literal lockdown to buckle down and clean and organize and throw away a mountain full of stuff that we clearly have not used in a year or 7 and clearly do not need.

But, a little girl from Facebook Marketplace just got a whole storage container of girls' headbands and hair accessories (sprayed with Lysol, of course) new to her, that can be added to the piles of stuff in her own mom's bathroom.

And I'm gonna go dye my hair. Possibly purple.