i’m one of five kids in my family. being the middle child has always been an easy role for me. by the time my younger brothers came along, i was sick of being the youngest child. however, living in a tiny house with five siblings, in the lower-to-middle class range, meant we had to hoard our goods if we didn’t want someone else to touch it/eat it/steal “borrow” it, etc.
this kind of hoarder behavior became almost a survival tactic. throughout our childhoods, my sisters and i would instinctively grab something our parents brought home (food, gifts, toys, new crayons – nothing was out of the question!) and stash it away like squirrels stashing nuts for the coming winter…or something.
it was only natural that when removed from my home setting, a place where i spent 18 years of my life, and into the first year of on-campus housing my freshman year, my vice-like grip on all things “mine” would need to be adjusted. i shared my snacks, i let my roommate borrow my art supplies, i was going strong. and then it happened.
i came back one night after a long day of classes, unlocked our door, and found my roommate on the floor, on MY side of the room, with MY (clean) pillow under her head, asleep on the (DIRTY!!) ground with the TV blaring. the tv normally faces her side of the room, since she was there more often than i was, so the fact that it was turned towards my side was odd already. but the fact that she was passed out for some reason, under my bed (my bed was raised so there was a good 3.5 feet under there), with my pillow under her head seemed to trigger some kind of primal instinct in me to go apeshit.
i get all territorial when it comes to my bed, especially when it comes to the cleanliness of my bed. i know it sounds crazy, but i don’t like it when people put their feet on my bed and they’re wearing the shoes they’ve been stomping around on all day, outside, on the dirty ground where they might have stepped on dog crap, gum, etc. i am a night shower kind of gal, and love getting all lotioned up and then slipping into nice, crisp, clean sheets and drifting off into peaceful sleep.
so my first instinct was to screech “what are you DOING?!” her eyes shot open, and she had a look of complete terror. i mean, i guess i DID startle her out of slumber, but hey, she was USING MY CLEAN PILLOW ON THE FLOOR!
she sits up, asking “what? what’s going on? what happened?”
“why the hell are you using my pillow when you have a perfectly good one on your bed?! and why are you on the FLOOR with it?!??!”
*silence*
“well?!”
she gets up, guilty, and kind of brushes off my pillow and sets it BACK on my bed, thus enraging me even more! She did NOT just put my once-clean (but now disgusting) pillow back on my clean bed! i spent a good 10 minutes incredulously firing questions at her, demanding to know why she would do such a thing. her response? a shrug, followed by “i didn’t think it was that big a deal.”
yes, i admit that it was crazy and neurotic and a tad overdramatic, but i was young and had lived 18 years of my life in a house where you had to claim your stake. we made nice after that, but i always secretly arranged my pillows in a manner that would tip me off if she ever decided to pull a stunt like that again 
anyway, that long story brings me to the reason for this post. i thought that a good, solid 8 years after moving out of my parents’ house, i would have kicked my hoarding habits. i’ve managed to share my belongings openly with people, even money. i’m what some would describe as a “saver.” you know, for those weird times when things happen like you need to replace all four tires on your car and you don’t have the money to pay for it? i vowed that that would never be me. as a child, i remember my dad being unemployed for a period, and that was the hardest time of my young life. so i became this crazy avid saver, slowly building up my “money cushion.” anyway, that just goes to show how open i am to sharing, since the money i earn is basically the closest thing to me i could offer to others, besides an internal organ.
but last night, i had a dream that one of my office-mates was in my office, using my computer and casually browsing through my files. my personal files. i went completely batshit crazy on him. this guy has also been somewhat of a pain in my side since he’s one of those people who ALWAYS NEED ATTENTION. i guess my persnickety attitude towards all things “mine” also include my validation of your actions. i don’t give validation for you just being alive, and you should quit asking me to. i unleashed my fury, demanding to know why he couldn’t use his own computer and getting more and more irate as he refused to leave my office. he’s one of those guys who is optimistic, even when others are angry at him, and it’s infuriating. why couldn’t he tell that my death glares were NOT friendly and that he should scat from my desk immediately?!
i woke up in such a rage and ready to spit fire…and then started laughing at myself. why was i even dreaming about hoarding?? it was so random! and yes, this co-worker is kind of annoying in a harmless way, but i doubt he’d ever loiter in my office without my being present. it was just so absurd.
every once in a while, i’ll catch myself still doing hoard-ish things for no apparent reason besides the fact that old habits die hard. the office is a prime place for my hoarding ways; there is always chocolate lying around. i don’t even LIKE chocolate, but i’ll find myself sneaking that one mini snickers away from the pile and stowing it in my middle/food drawer, just in case i ever want it.
