Jarring news

Don't report me to A&E to suggest I be featured on an episode of Hoarders just yet.

We are still able to open our door and walk through the house relatively unobstructed.

But to come clean, for the last fourteen months or so, I am unable to throw away a jar.

I mean, even a jar that held pickles or salsa. If it's glass, where once I faithfully recycled, I am now compelled to wash it and store it.

Do you know how complicated that can get? Once-available (well, relatively) cabinet space is now a sea of thread-mouthed glassware.

There is a sizeable cache of jars under my kitchen desk built-in (I never put my feet under that desk so no worries) waiting to be cleaned of labels, as well as of wax residue and soot.

Yes. Those would be candle jars. Jars that once held candles are great for stuff like Ceylon cinnamon. 

And what's left of the Lindt Lindor truffles from TG's Valentine's Day. 

For your information I ate only two of those.

Then there are canister-type jars that are meant to store stuff like oatmeal.

And what's left of the Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's.

I ate more than two of those.

These Atlas Masons (once filled to the brim with Classico pasta sauce and Don't Forgetta Mezzetta roasted bell peppers) now do the I-need-just-a-wee-snackie thing as on-the-counter holders of Nestle Toll House semisweet chips and Wonderful pistachios.

(Actually I doubt the Mezzetta peppers came in that jar. I forgetta. The point is, with my system you can mix and match your lids. There are no hard and fast rules.)

Look how nicely these Ball jars cooperate when commissioned to hold tapers and tealights. Because no, I never can anything. The only thing I preserve is my sanity.

Barely.

That's some unsung heroes right there y'all.

It does not stop at jars; I am equally enamored of bottles. You've got your odd common but gorgeous Pompeian balsamic vinegar bottle which, who could toss?

Not me. I drink out of it. Sometimes. No, not the vinegar. I'm sweet enough already. But, like, maybe ice water. With a Glass Dharma straw, of course.

Remember the Penguin? You don't? Oh.

Anyway TG will get a dirty plastic souvenir cup out of the dishwasher and wash it to drink from before he'll use an already-clean glass. 

Not always, but frequently enough that I thought to mention it. He likes plastic bowls too.

Plastic does not touch my lips -- or my spoon -- unless I can help it. I cop to being a glass snob.

The flip-up sipper on my blue go-everywhere unbreakable water bottle is the lone exception.

This jar-and-bottle obsession sort of started when, in the fall of 2011, I saw on Pinterest that you could make your own decoupage solution (Elmer's and water = poor girl's ModPodge, who knew) and turn glass containers into works of art.

The kind you illuminate with a tealight inside.

You may remember I made some of my children. These were actually cheap vases.

By now I perceive you have consulted your skin-watch a couple of times, wishing you were scraping gum off the sole of your shoe, anything but reading about ordinary jars.

I can almost hear your inner voice asking: Does she believe any of this is revolutionary? Does she think I need to be told to wash a stupid jar and use it to hold something else?

No. Why would I insult you thus, dear reader? 

It was all a lead-in to this:

Check out the octopus opening a jar in order to extract its contents: a feckless crab.

I'd like to put a saucer of toast and a tightly-closed jarful of Smucker's apple butter in front of him and sit back to watch the show.

I adore the part where the green lid is stuck to his suckers, held aloft in silent victory while he ambushes the little sucker inside the jar.

And I think there's a bird in the room, rooting for one of them. Like I'm rooting for you.

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Happy Wednesdopus ~ I know you'll go jar

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Comments

[Mari]

I was doing just fine, admiring all those jars and thinking that The Pirate was pretty smart to reuse those beauties, when you sucked me into watching that video. I didn't read the fine print about the crab, and thought I would just be watching the jar get opened. I could have done without the poor little crab in the jar. :( I know - it's natures way.

[Donna M.]

I have a hard time disposing of jars too. But I've had to let many of them go over the years. No room! And I thought the octopus video was creepy, LOL.

[Jennifer]

@Mari ... haha! It never occurred to me anyone would have a hard time with that. And I must point out, it wasn't nature that put that poor crab in that jar! He got snookered.

@Donna M. ... I'm running out of room too. And a person can always go and buy another jar of pickles if they need a jar. It makes no sense. I need a 12-step program.

[Sue the Hobbit]

I've been collecting glass jars lately too. I think they will soon be a rarity. Last summer, i hit an estate sale that had boxes and boxes of all sizes if canning jars for 10c a piece. You know I came home with a few dozen!

[Donna (Texas)]

Rut Rowwwww!!! Is an Intervention in the offing???Hahaaaa.
hughugs

[Skunkfeathers]

I was *cured* of glass hoarding after experiencing a technology epiphany in the 1970s, hearing myself get into an argument with my car's open door alarm...*your door is ajar*.."no, it's a door.."...*your door is ajar*..."is NOT!!!"...*your door is ajar*...