Can can

Perhaps it is that winter leads to introspection, because I continue to stumble into opportunities to contemplate my foibles.

I have a thing about empty containers; it’s difficult, often nearly impossible, for me to throw them away. Bottles, cans, boxes, crates, jugs, even paper sacks—all must be held for evaluation prior to any decision about disposal. This can be especially difficult in a travel trailer, where space is at a premium.

Right now, the four-inch wide strip between my stove and sink (a significant work surface in my miniscule RV kitchen) is crowded with an empty coffee can, a round quart plastic orange juice bottle and a large square hand soap container. These are perfectly good receptacles, capable of years of continued service in any number of significant applications. Plus, I’ve already purchased them, incidental to other goods, so they have the additional significant advantage of being free. At the moment, I can’t imagine to what uses I’d likely put them, but you just never know.

I come from a line of proud container re-users, so the source of the disorder is most likely genetic. We saved the sturdy little baby food jars for my grandfather, my Mom’s Dad, who filled them with a large and varied collection of used hardware—screws, bolts, nuts, washers nails, all saved from other projects—that he kept on special shelves and racks he’d built between the wall studs in his garage. He was always sending me out there to fetch one particular jar or another, which I could never seem to find. Then he’d have to come out to pluck it from the exact spot he’d told me to look. He never made a big deal out of it, but still, not good memories.

With my mother it was cigar boxes. Don’t ask me where she got them; nobody in the family smoked, let alone cigars. But she had stacks of them on her closet shelf, ready for scout projects, school pencil boxes, or as a home for bug and beetle collections.

My Dad specialized in coffee cans. Again their source is a mystery, since my folks drank instant coffee, which came in too-fragile-to-reuse (as I knew too well) jars. I suspect he may have brought the coffee cans home from the fire stations where he was assigned. I liked those cans the best because the aroma of coffee tended to linger long after they were put to use holding lawn mower parts and bicycle chains.

I knew I was in trouble when they came out with the plastic coffee cans a few years ago. A dedicated drinker of “real” coffee, I soon had a formidable collection of all sizes—and in matching color and brand logos! Those cans are perfect. They're easily cleaned, have potential applications in both the kitchen and the shop, are able able to hold dry goods and fluids, and don't leave a rusty stain behind when set down in the unnoticed wet spot.

By the time I moved from my last house, I had accumulated over 30 of those beautiful, wonderful plastic cans—all empty, of course; but still, a distinguished matched set unlikely to be found elsewhere outside of a major metropolitan area. However, I was moving into smaller quarters provided as part of my employment, and the cans had to go. I couldn’t bear throwing them away, so I set them out with the other yard sale items, ten cents for the big ones, a nickel for the small. And there they sat. Not a single taker! What was wrong with folks?

It was then I took that long, cold look in the mirror and saw the maniacal face of a coffee-can horder staring back.

Since then, I’ve allowed myself to hold empty containers for a week. If, within that time, I have not thought of a probable use that I, in my present circumstances, am likely to encounter, then, reluctantly, I dispose of them, to recycling as appropriate.

And right now, as I look at the can, bottle and jug occupying about 40% of my kitchen work space, I know it’s time. This will not be a happy day.

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