So I’m hoarding avocados now. It’s really fun. I feel like I get all the beneficial feelings of being a crazy cat lady, without the pre-packaged judgement 🙂 But give it time, the world will soon have a new breed of stereotype: The Hoarding Avocado Woman.

This morning, while cleaning the kitchen, I looked at my pile of four avocado seeds sitting in a puddle of water on the back edge of the sink. I leave them there as a visual to-do list and because this is the best thing I’ve thought of so far to keep them alive until I can plant them. The water from washing dishes each day splashes on them and kinda forms a little life-nest beneath them, giving me the time to come up with another glass jar somehow.

Everything in the store in a glass jar has a new meaning to me. I want to crouch down and surprise-leap onto my prey in Trader Joes, and flailingly leave it’s contents strewn wherever just get to it’s magnificant glass hide and display it with pride along my window sill.

But today I thought, “If I fill an empty lid with water, I could just sit these seeds in there, instead of this evaporating puddle, and that will be a better temporary water source which will give me more time to calmly and rationally eat whatever is in the fridge packaged in a glass jar…” That’s genius!, I thought.

I’ve blown through the 14 glass jars we already had. They are all filled with avocado seeds, water, and enthusiastic toothpicks (that are either reaching out and up for hugs or they’re doing their best Olympic gymnast impressions.)

But then I saw the four seeds in the lid and I was surprised. “How do we have FOUR avocado seeds? Plus the 14 other ones?! THAT’S SO MANY AVOCADOS!!! Do other people eat that many avocados?” I heard the voices of my friends who like to complain and make excuses about why they can’t eat organic and about everything else they can possibly complain about in life. The same friends who have now started eating organic and boasting about it with the same other friends on Facebook. I think it needed to be their idea. Whatever, I’m just excited it’s happening, whatever way it happens!

Nonetheless, I heard them say, “Well, I can’t AFFORD a psychotic amount of avocados.” The second part of the sentence is more my voice than theirs… And it made me realize… Yes, my fiance and I don’t have kids, so that saves money. But he’s just above the poverty line, and last year, I was way below it. So we’re rationing a tiny bit between us. Why do we have these luxurious, rich, creamy, tasty avocados on such a regular basis?

I think it’s because we save money in other places. Our poordom has trained us to live without things that I think people think are essentials. Before we knew a lot about nutrition or health or how the cycle of nature affects humans, we were just broke-ass post-college actor-comedians. Here is a list of things we have slowly stopped buying throughout the last decade that may have left an opening in our budget to feed my avocado habit:

• paper towels
• kleenex
• fabric softener
• dryer sheets
• women’s shaving cream
• body wash
• bathtub cleaner
• toilet cleaner
• windex
• all-purpose cleaner
• sponges
• plastic baggies
• plastic wrap
• cotton balls
• facial toner
• men’s conditioner
• shampoo
• men’s hair gel
• haircuts
• body lotion
• face lotion
• hand lotion
• make-up remover
• exfoliating scrub
• bathtub oils
• scented bath salts
• television
• soda

There are other things that I never bought that I still never buy that are sometimes considered “normal” like manicures, pedicures, facials, eye-brow waxes, and hair dye.

This list makes us look like really bored, hairy people, in a really stinky house. But we basically use a few other products to cover all of those listed. Dr. Bronner’s soap is our shampoo, body wash, face wash, and make-up remover. I use olive oil as my face and body lotion and as my bath oil (with fresh orange peels thrown in- so invigorating! And probably the closest I’ll get to understanding what it’s like to be a Pollo Loco chicken). Adding epsom salt makes for a muscle-soothing bath, and it’s a good source of magnesium!

I use baking soda as a facial exfoliater from time to time or just a good scrub with a clean, dry wash cloth post shower will do. Baking soda and vinegar is our cleaner for almost everything. I use dish detergent to clean some surfaces too. We use cloth towels as our paper towels and sponges. Since some folks in Africa walk four miles a day just to get their water, our lack of fabric softener hasn’t seemed like a huge problem. But I just learned that baking soda and vinegar can act as fabric softener too! And I do enjoy a nice soft towel.

We use tupperware instead of plastic wrap or baggies. Unless we acquire a zip-loc bag from someone, then we keep washing and re-using it like it’s 1932 and we went in a time machine and brought back plastic baggies. I’ve been cutting my own hair for over ten years, and now Shane’s hair too. His sometimes comes out like Bonnie Hunt’s bob, but that’s only every other year or so. We watch television shows online and we don’t drink soda.

And for years now, we’ve been using toilet paper as our nose tissues. This is just horrible during cold season. If you’re too broke to buy tissues, you’re too broke to buy cloud-like-pillow paper for your butt. We just have the “I-lost-my homework-and-some-how-it-ended-up-in-Ruth-and-Shane’s-house-and-they’ve-been-wiping-their-asses-with-it.-I swear.-I did my homework.-And they stole it…-To paper cut themselves…-for…-I don’t know why…-for their art” kind of toilet paper. And each winter we rub it all over our dripping faces.

When I stay somewhere and there’s kleenex, I feel so excited and taken care of. I had been thinking that soon as I start making more money, this is something I’m excited to have again. But I’m more interested in having a trash-free household. Which means trying out bandanas! And not on our heads! We’ll be gansta and blow boogies into our bandanas. Then, like some weird kid in class picking their nose, looking around, and then keeping it, we’ll keep it. And wash it out later and start over. Grossers. I really have a hard time with boogers… Anyways…

This is why I think we have money for avocados.