Closet Compost

Kids have terrible logic. Seriously, sometimes they will come up with the most absurd ideas that no normal adult would ever think of, and their brains will tell them “yeah, do that…that’s a great idea.” It’s really unfortunate. 

When I was a kid, my mother used to hammer this idea in my head of not wasting food. She always used to pack our school lunches for us - brown paper bag with a healthy sandwich option, yogurt, piece of fruit. Never anything good like chips or Dunkaroos (for those of you not lucky enough to attend junior high in the 90’s and have the pleasure of experiencing Dunkaroos, this is what I’m talking about). 

On a side note, sometimes that sandwich option would be of a foreign variety, like Leiberwurst. On those days I would dread pulling my sandwich out. I would try to eat it quickly before anyone could spot the pale pasty colored mush in between the slices of bread I was holding. Never worked of course, some kid would always spot it and loudly ask “ewww, what is that?” (what IS it with kids and their sensitivity to food?!). Once I had informed everyone it was Leiberwurst, their eyes would pop out of their head as they processed the concept that I was willingly digesting mashed liver for lunch. I know exactly how Tulla from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” felt when she brought leftover Moussaka to school. 

Anyway, we’re getting away from my original story here - kid logic. So obviously, my lunches were leaving something to be desired, and usually it was the fruit that I chose to forego the most often. However, since it was so well instilled in me to not waste food, I would always save it and put the fruit, still wrapped in the brown lunch bag, back into my backpack. The thing is, my mom would get upset if she knew we hadn’t eaten our entire lunch. So as I rode the bus home, I would constantly be faced with the sudden panic of what to do with my leftover fruit. My mom had a habit of checking our backpacks occasionally, so I couldn’t leave it in there. My solution? I would walk in the door, rush to my room, pull the brown bag from my backpack, and quickly shove it in the back of my closet – right on the middle shelf where my tshirts hung and created a nice dark corner perfect for hiding items from plain view – before throwing my backpack down in its usual spot next to my desk.  Something told me this was a good idea. 

Now here’s where the problem really starts. This would happen several days in a row, and sometimes, I’m ashamed to say, a couple weeks in a row, and suddenly I would have a growing stash of brown lunch bags containing rotting fruit piling in the corner of my closet. Ah yes, the plot thickens. Someone might ask, “why wouldn’t you just tell your mom to stop packing fruit in your lunch? Or throw it in the trash right away? Or throw it away before getting on the school bus?" Those, of course, are all reasonable responses. Apparently I was unable to come up with any such plan. No, my kid brain telling me to create my own personal closet compost system sounded much better (on another related note – this is not my only experience with hoarding produce – check out my Pumpkin story here). 

My panic at the possibility of someone finding my food stash would keep me at edge at all times. I would look for moments to clean out my hoard, ideally when my mom was out of the house and it was the morning of trash pick-up day. Or worse, sometimes I would forget all about my stash, and discover it in the most unfortunate way – by digging for a long lost article of clothing and plunging my hand instead into a soggy lunch bag with mushy fruit. Sadly, more often than not my worst fears were realized. Inevitably, my mother (who I’m sure you’re now starting to realize REALLY liked to stay in my business) would be rooting around in my closet and uncover my little secret. 

One particularly awful time, I was in another room of the house when I heard the bellowing from the depths of my closet and immediately realized what had happened. You’d think after being caught a few times that I would have found another method of disposal for my fruit waste, but no. In that instance, there were a few weeks worth of bags on the shelf, and the rotting fruit had soaked through the bags and left a beautiful apricot-colored stain on the shelf for all posterity. After having a painful, tearful conversation/argument with my mother about my fruit storing habits, we both retreated to our bedrooms to process the emotional exhaustion we were both feeling – my mother mostly frustration, and me humiliation. 

That evening I happened to be reading another 90’s kid staple - Chicken Soup for the Soul, the Kid’s Version – and I came across a most relateable story – “Green Salami”. I searched the internet to find an online version of this story, and was met with success – you can read that story here. As for how it related to me, well, if you read it, it will be obvious. I was comforted to know that I was not the only child weird enough to hide food in their bedroom, and I felt the need to clear my name with my mother by presenting her with the story. I entered her room and announced I needed to read her something, and proceeded to narrate the story from the book. 

About halfway through, I noticed my mother biting her lip, and trying not to laugh. Maybe it was the roller-coaster of emotion we had both just experienced, but I found the sight gave me the giggles as well. By the end of the story, we were both laughing so hard I could barely breathe and had to keep pausing from the story in order to continue reading, and my mother had tears streaming down her face. Please don’t ask me how a story about hairy sausage brought a bit of healing to our uncomfortable encounter that afternoon, but that’s exactly what it did. Perhaps it was just the knowledge that we were not the other mother-daughter relationship to have this experience. It certainly provided a fun memory that I still remember to this day.