You're welcome, Mom.

When my maternal grandmother passed away suddenly 8 years ago, my mom and her siblings had the unenviable task of going and cleaning out Grandma's stuff from the house of her husband. I say "house of her husband" on purpose because my grandmother had remarried late in life (after being divorced from my jackass grandfather for 30+ years) to a widower, and had sold her house and most of the stuff in it, and had moved into his house where he'd lived with his former wife and raised their kids, etc. So, even though she lived there for 10 years, it always felt like we were formal visitors when my mom and all of my grandmother's other progeny came to call (rather than like family who could lounge around, raid the fridge, change the channel on the t.v., etc.).

Even though it was a dismal task, my mom and her sisters had a pretty good time unearthing all of my grandma's weird shit. Like most people who were raised dirt ass poor in The Depression, my grandmother never EVER threw anything away. So my they found boxes and bags and other types of containers FULL of half-used, sort of empty bath and body products. Make-up from the 60s. Hundreds of perfume samples and bottles of hotel toiletries. Medicine bottles so old that the liquid had evaporated and the copy had completely worn off of the labels. Mounds and mounds of pantyhose with runners in them. Shoes that had never been worn. Clothes from previous decades that still had tags on them. You get the idea.

I guess because my mom is a)the sibling who lived the closest to Grandma's house and b) had room to store it, she ended up with most of this shit. Why they did not throw the vast majority of it out remains a mystery.


I guess it shouldn't have been much of a surprise because, as they say, the apple doth not fall far from the tree.

Case in point: A few years back, I was visiting my mom and stepfather in the Pine Curtain, and I was examining her pantry. There were things in there that were so expired that I'm pretty sure they presented a public health risk, but the BEST one that I found was a box of "Chicken Cacciatore" mix that I had bought when I was living in my first apartment in college. In 1988. Somehow, it made its way to my mom's pantry, and had lived there comfortably until the new Millennium. And don't even get me started on her spice cabinet. Wow. I found shit in there that had labels written in calligraphy in what I'm pretty sure was Middle English.

When my mom moved from her house in the Pine Curtain (where she'd lived since 1983) to the Hill Country in late 2005, I thought, "Finally!! She'll finally be forced to clean out all of Grandma's old bullshit AND face the facts that she's got a lot of scary old stuff that she needs to jettison as well."

Fast forward to this past weekend.

I was alone with The Geej at my mom's house on Saturday night. The baby was asleep, nothing was on t.v., and I was bored. So, I decided to get nosy. The guest room that is more or less "my room" when I go to her house has its own attached bathroom. Within this bathroom is ooooooodles of storage, including a big, walk-in closet that is practically empty. And then there are the shelves full of plastic bins. I knew these bins held band-aids, extra soap and the like, but like I said, I was feeling nosy, so I decided to see what else they held inside. When I did so, I was visited by the ghost of my grandmother.


Exhibit A:

This is the treasure trove of stuff that I pulled out of the bins that either had clearly marked expiration dates that had come and gone many moons ago or were so clearly decades old, they deserved culling.

Exhibit B:

Oh look! This dietary supplement just turned 10 years old! It'll be entering the 5th grade this fall. Congrats!

Exhibit C:

Remember when "Giorgio, Beverly Hills" was a big deal? It was about the same time that "Dynasty" was #1 in the ratings. (Fun fact: My mom also still has a yellow and white striped "Giorgio of Beverly Hills" beach towel that I'm pretty sure she got with a coupon from "Parade" magazine.)

Exhibits D and E:

I have SO many questions about these products: "Was there really weasel oil in these things, or was it just a clever marketing ploy because, hey, what's more compelling than weasel oil that you can put on your face!?" "Was the 'Rose Marie' mentioned in the the 'Collection By..." line the same Rose Marie that wore the little bows in her hair on the Dick VanDyke show? And if so, how involved WAS she in the 'Oil of Mink' R&D process?" "What the fuck is a 'Moist Cote'?"

Exhibit F:

No label. No idea. Too scared to open and try and figure it out.


Exhibit G:
You've used "Dawn Mist" deodorant, right? No? [Seriously, where the fuck did this come from and why the hell did she have THREE of them?]


Exhibit H:
'Member back in 7th grade when you would've killed a kitten just to get the latest pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans to wear on your skinny, pre-pubescent ass when you went to the skating rink on Friday night and couples skated to "Babe" by Styx? And remember how Gloria Vanderbilt branding was, like, everywhere and all you wanted to do was get your hands on anything with that signature or those initials or that swan emblazoned on it? And then she tried to go mass market and started selling her shit at K-Mart and crapped away any cache and desirability her brand had and then she couldn't give that shit away on the street? Well, my mom still has this little gem from before Gloria's fall from grace: a stained--but still full--"Eau de Toilette" sample of the scent of Ms. Vanderbilt. So very, very sad.

Exhibit I:



Yeah...judging from the graphics, I'm pretty sure this is from about 1967.

Exhibit J: I love to use MOISTURIZER on my face before I drink my SOFT DRINK and listen to my MP3 MUSIC FILES while writing in my journal with my INK PEN. Why, I ask you. WHY did she keep this in the first place, then move this 300 miles to her new house, and then pack it in a precious storage bin?!!

Jeez.

I got a big, black trash bag and dumped all this shit in there and it's now in a landfill somewhere. The sad part? I only managed to empty one plastic bin. There's still so much SHIT in that closet. Even sadder? You should see my garage and my bathroom cabinets.

As I said, the apple doth not far fall...