Nut Case

By TAD BARTIMUS

Nobody actually needs five pounds of fancy mixed nuts. Or four pounds of salted pretzels. Or six gallon-bottles of $7 Merlot. Or a block of Swiss cheese as big as Rhode Island.

Oh sure, we can always use a nibble, a taste, a sip. But cruising the aisle of the big discount grocery stores, on the prowl for "bargains" that cost three times as much as I would pay if I was just buying my usual supplies, I realized my cart runneth over with sodium and sulfites.

As soon as I pull into their mammoth parking lots and park (always in the last row – I swear, if I got there an hour before the doors opened, I'd still be in the last row!) I lose all common sense. Perhaps it's a holdover from being a kid during the Cold War.

Back in those duck-and-cover days our neighbors had a bomb shelter stocked with survival rations and we didn't. My dad, an Air Force pilot who would have been in the thick of it if there'd been a thermonuclear attack, thought the bomb shelter neighbor was a "nut case." The guy also mowed his lawn twice a week, which also had something to do with dad's attitude. Dad didn't do lawns.

Anyway, maybe because back then we didn't have a year's supply of toilet paper and canned peaches I felt inadequate and deprived. Maybe the 120 rolls of toilet paper now stacked in my garage helps me make up for youthful feelings of inadequacy. Or maybe I just keep forgetting I've already bought toilet paper (but that's another column).

I used to blame my compulsion for half-gallon jugs of salad dressing and Doritos in twin packs on the mega-stores' fluorescent lighting and free samples. Then I heard on talk TV I needed to own up to the truth: I'm a hoarder.

I measure my well-being in multiples of stewed tomatoes and bags of bread mix. If my pantry doors don't quite close I feel secure; an empty space on a shelf gives me an anxiety attack. I am normally a disciplined person, a list-maker who resists impulse. But at the discount food store I turn into a kamikaze cart driver, careening up and down aisles tossing in items I would never think of plucking from Safeway's shelves: capers, marinated artichokes, hearts of palm, anchovy-stuffed olives. And that's only in row C-310.

At Costco or Cost-U-Less or Sam's Club I behave as if I've been forced to spend my whole life shopping for half-portions at Circle K and 7-Eleven. Running amuck in discount paradise, I behave as though I haven't eaten in three weeks.

"Here," I tell myself, "have another gallon of teriyaki marinade, there's still a little room in the cupboard next to the other two jugs you've never opened. And you never know when you're going to crave pickled herring in the middle of the night. Hmmm…can't have too many buy-two, get-two-free twin packs of Chex party mix."

There's instant gratification in all this buying. I can't afford to walk into a Lexus dealer and say, "I'll take four of those, please." But I can pay for three dozen croissants, easy. Except there's never just croissants in the cart. When the checkout lady adds up the herring, olives, spiral-sliced ham (better get two, somebody may come visit!) and all the other stuff, my bill is always three figures. And not a quart of milk or a loaf of bread in sight. Worse, I have to lug it all home, unload it and put it somewhere. Not to mention eat it.

My friend and I talked about this recently when we bumped into each other reaching for the same five-pound bag of Oreos. Her cart looked just like mine.

"Did you have a bomb shelter when you were growing up?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "Why?"

We made a pact: she'll buy the gallon of sun-dried tomatoes, I'll get the frozen three-casserole spinach lasagnas and we'll split 'em.

But I'll still leave the pantry door open.

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