Running on Empty

I hate running out of things.  I guess everybody does, but some things/times are more inconvenient than others.  A couple of weeks ago I was making no-bake cookies. The chocolate was heating on the stove, and almost to the boiling point, when I reached into the lazy Susan for oats and realized I didn’t have enough.  UGH!  With my chocolate reaching a critical point, I was already committed so I had to decide – and quickly – whether I was going to add the oats I had and hope for the best, or do some quick cooking math and remove some of the chocolate from the pan to match the amount of oats I had.  MOH suggested I dump the oats in and take my chances, I opted to take some of the chocolate out and reduce the amount of the rest of the ingredients.  They turned out ‘okay’.

This leads me to a couple of observations.

First let me say I loath cooking math.  Its worse than paper towel or toilet paper math.  How much is half of a third of a cup?  What is scant water?  My no bake cookie recipe calls for 1/2 of 1/4 of a pound of butter.  I’ve made them so many times I now just remember that this is the equivalent of half a stick of butter, but why don’t they just say that in the first place!  And don’t get me started on recipes that say one package or one can.  With all the variety of sizes available in the store, that is incredibly unhelpful to me.

But back to running out of things.  My mom did try to impress upon me the importance of checking to make sure all ingredients were on hand before starting the cooking or baking process.  But sometimes, you just think you know what you have.  Last time I made no bakes I had plenty of oats and I don’t really use them for anything else.  However, that doesn’t account for MOH apparently going on an oatmeal kick which I didn’t know about since we don’t eat breakfast together.  Also, sometimes I do not have the amount of chocolate chips or pecans that I think I do because some people (who won’t be named here today, but know who they are) view these items as snacks, not just baking ingredients.

Whether we’re talking cooking ingredients or personal grooming products, I always try to keep a back-up package of the items that we use most frequently.  Flour, sugar, bread, eggs, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant.  When you use up the last of something and open the new one, just put it on the shopping list, right?  Seems like a solid plan, but then why does it seem like we run out of things so often and inconveniently?

My sister does NOT like to run out of things.  She has a ‘pantry’ in the lower level of her house.  (I love to point out to her that this is one of those she-is-her-mother’s-daughter things.)  She told me recently that she took a cannister of breadcrumbs down to her pantry only to realize there were already three down there.  Want to guess who had enough toilet paper on hand when the world went crazy?

Happiness guru, Gretchen Rubin talks in one of her books about Openers (those who enjoy opening new products, like shampoo) and Finishers (think about those who like to get that very last squeeze out of the bottle of ketchup or tube of toothpaste).  There are also Over-buyers – folks that are always ready for a pandemic or unexpected guests for dinner, and Under-buyers – those that wait until they need a facial tissue to add the item to the shopping list.

I’m definitely a finisher.  Whether we’re talking salad dressing or perfume, I find it uncomfortable to throw away the bottle when it looks like there is more product inside, but you can’t get it to come out.  And what about pop (aka soda or soft drink depending on where you reside)?  C’mon. Everybody knows a person – or is that person – who drinks half of a can, or bottle, of pop and then pours the rest down the drain.  Ugh!  I won’t make you take the very last swig, but finish that up!

And of course, there are always exceptions to the rules or examples of contradictory behavior.  I am never going to run out of books.  I have one entire shelf of books in my bookcase that are yet to be read, and, quite literally, hundreds of hours of audio books in my Audible app yet to be heard.  But I’ve come dangerously close to running out of gas on my workday commute.  Well, geez!  I’m too tired to stop at the pump on the way home, and who the heck has time to stop in the morning? Luckily, this hasn’t happned yet, but if it does, I have plenty to read while I wait for someone to come to my aid.