A Tale of the Tittlemouse

My pantry is out of control. I’ve known this for a long time but have been unable to muster up the motivation to tackle the job.

Noooooooooo! Not today!

And trust me, it’s bad:

Really bad, check out the bottom half:

Time to summon  Mrs. Tittlemouse:

But the untidiness was something dreadful—”Never did I see such a mess—smears of honey; and moss, and thistledown—and marks of big and little dirty feet—all over my nice clean house!”

As you will note I no longer have a floor in the pantry. It’s been replaced by wine, booze (for extreme emergency purposes), a case of Bundaberg gingerale (for ordinary emergencies), vinegar (pickle season), step stool (to reach above the clutter)…and that’s only what you can see. Additionally there is a rotisserie for the grill (someday we might just do a leg of lamb), a stack of free weights (for the gravalox), a mail bin (because the office has been transformed into a comfortable TV room without a desk), a light for the patio umbrella (because daylight saving time can’t last forever), 2 dozen brown paper bags from a grocery store that has been out of business for 2 or 3 years, 4 coffee cans and 3 miscellaneous liquor bottle cans (holiday issue) filled with coins weighing in at at least 500 pounds. These were intended for parking meters that around here have not accepted coins for at least 5 years. Then there’s the rack that goes with the microwave that was changed out 6 years ago. And of course there are my cookbooks, occupying half of the available real estate. Don’t even THINK about asking me to cull curate this prized collection: I already have.

Yet with all this stuff, when I went to make some cookies for an ailing relative on Monday I discovered that I had 5 kinds of crackers, 6 styles of pasta and at least half a dozen or more cans of various types of tomatoes and green chilis…but no sugar and no flour. The full extent of this creeping chaos hit me. An intervention was necessary.

As if by divine intervention I received an email from Costco that very day advising me of a special sale on these babies:

A 12 pack of various sized, stackable containers with air tight lids for only $59.99! I promptly picked up two boxes. It took me the better part of Tuesday afternoon to clean and dry the suckers. The 12 piece, (or in my case 24 piece) set is actually 24 (48) pieces because of the covers. Actually 36 (72) because each lid is also two pieces. And that’s not counting the 72 removable silicon gaskets (which are dishwasher safe) on the lids. Everything else is hand washable only.

All I managed yesterday was a complete dismantling and sorting that resulted in a very large black garbage bag stuffed full of expired foodstuffs and junk from the pre-digital Paleozoic era. I’m seriously beginning to wonder if I’m up to the task.

“Will it ever be tidy again?” said poor Mrs. Tittlemouse.

Now it will have to wait as I’m leaving town for the the rest of the week to visit my sisters and sister-in-laws. All has been crammed back into the pantry as neatly as possible back and Raj has been instructed NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING while I’m gone. But I am thinking of asking him to pick up another box of those fine Oxo beauty containers. I may have replaced one addiction for another, but hope springs eternal. And visions of sugar plums still dance in my head.