Hoarding: A Novel Idea

Whenever there’s a curve, I’m usually way behind it. So of course, I was late to toilet paper hoarding.

It’s infuriating. Everybody knew weeks ago to hoard toilet paper. Me? I just started to hoard yesterday. Attempted to hoard. Needless to say, the shelves were barren at Giant. And the clerk at Martindale’s – she just laughed at me.

“Not even any organic toilet paper?” I whimpered. It kills me to buy organic anything. But I was desperate, willing to pay top dollar.

“You’re not a Martindale’s regular, are you, pal?” the clerk sneered.

You got that right, lady. I’m a Co-op kinda guy. But I knew there wouldn’t be any t.p. there, either. Even if my Co-op number is an impressive 57.

And then, Wham! It hit me. I sped home. Ran upstairs to the closet in the master bathroom. We have only one full bathroom in our house. But I love the sound of it – Master Bathroom. Like I’m related to Queen Elizabeth or live on Guernsey Road, all fancy. 

“What are you doing up there?” my wife, Mary, called.

“Just . . . caulking . . . dear.” I’m not a quick thinker.

“Sulking?”

I do sulk a lot. “Yes, yes. Sulking, dear. Don’t come up! Major sulk in progress!”

She rushed up the stairs. Loomed in the closet doorway. “What in god’s name are you doing?”

I was crouched like Gollum, deep in the dim of the closet, clutching three rolls of toilet paper to my chest. “Hoarding,” I snarled. “You can’t have any. Mine. All mine.”

“Ours,” Mary said evenly.

“Mine,” my voice a low growl.

“I could taser you.”

“You’re bluffing,” I said. “We don’t own a taser . . . do we?” I’d been buying so many odd things on Amazon and eBay lately, to pass the endless pandemic hours. A spiked dog collar, though we have no dog. A 10-gallon cowboy hat, signed by Kenny Rogers. A pair of acrylic high heels, once owned by Imelda Marcos. They didn’t fit, of course, they never do. I bought a pair of Melania Trump’s stiletto heels last year at a CPAC auction that were so tight on my bunions, I would cry myself to sleep. But hey, my fault, shouldn’t have worn them to bed.

Mary took a deep breath. “Sweetheart. Honeybun. In this household, we do not hoard. We share.”

Hoarding bad. Sharing good. I tried to meet her halfway. “All right. How about this? I will sell you some of my toilet paper. By the sheet.” Brilliant! We use one-ply. At a penny a sheet, and Mary a profligate user, I’d be a millionaire by midnight!

Her voice was dangerous. “I will not pay for toilet paper . . . that I own.”

“You don’t own it if I’m hoarding it.” Hey, she pushed me. “Guess you better use the phone book.”

Remember phone books? They used to put old phone books in outhouses. Remember outhouses? I do. There was one at the Boy Scout camp I went to when I was a kid. A three-seater. I’m still working through the horror with my therapist.

“Phone books no longer exist, dear,” Mary said. “How about I just use one of your novels? All the toilet paper I want. Page after page.”

I’m a novelist. Her threat cut deep. 

She clomped up to my third-floor office. I heard the sound of a page ripping. I flinched.

And then suddenly, I was kind of happy. No, ecstatic! I released my hoarded toilet paper, hugged myself, and whirled round and round the master bathroom. Yes! Yes! Yes! At last, I understood. The meaning of it all. My life’s work, my art – not merely beautiful – essential!

Writer Jon Cohen lives in Swarthmore.