I Could Have Another You In A Minute, Matter Fact He'll Be Here In A Minute

My parents have a history of occasionally buying things that some might consider to be white trash-y. For example, hanging on the garage wall is a nice mountain bike...with a lawnmower engine bolted onto the back wheel and a throttle wired to the handlebars. (There used to be two of these 'vehicles'. Still not sure what happened to the first, and don't really care to ask.) If you opened the fridge, you would find several cans of soda...in a 'can caddy' where they roll in a snake fashion so there is always one at the front of the shelf. (And don't be the person who takes the last can without refilling. I assure you, this will not end well for you.)

Through questionable purchases like these, they also uncovered a fantastic device. So fantastic, it's less of a mystery that we have one, than it is that we only have one.
I see no downside to this device. That's not true, I guess if you would remove it if you wanted to have one bathroom that was solely for impressing people. It hangs right where it's needed most and gives you a quick indicator of how things are. Two rolls in the caddy, we're fine. One roll in the caddy, if you remember when you're at the store, pick some up. An empty caddy, you're heading to walmart* once you wash your hands. Even if you just came home from there, you're going back out. (And yes, walmart*, not costco. Some things are worth the splurge. This is at the top of that list.)

The key to this whole system, is that the empty basket means you just put a new roll into the game. You're just out of back-ups. From years of this, I've developed a personal dogma regarding important items: Always have back-ups. Obviously, you can surmise my spending habits on the aforementioned necessity. Everything in my bathroom, I have at least a duplicate of it. This bleeds over to other things. For example, I buy printer cartridges three at a time. Pens by the box. OJ at least two cartons at a time. Casual shoes get purchased two pair at a time so when I get tired of one pair, I can switch back and forth. I own four iPods and often bring two when I go on a trip because you never know when one's going to crap out on you. Same with headphones.

Nothing makes my life easier than knowing that every essential item in my life has at least one substitute waiting to come off the bench. (And essential is definitely subjective. I own two Frank Thomas signed baseballs and used to have three baseball gloves. Yes, they're definitely essential.) It affords me the luxury of avoiding all depletion-related stress events.

Really, the biggest thing for which I don't practice redundancy is girlfriends. And I'm about 99.9% sure that I'm better off for it. For everything else, I strive to always have 'One in the basket'. My favorite example of someone other than me living this principle has to be Mike.

Mike owns a five-disc DVD player. He's had it for a couple years now. I can't remember how many, but I did live with him when it happened, so it's been a while. Soon thereafter, we began watching 'Arrested Development', a top five all-time show (Others on the list: 'Boy Meets World', 'Seinfeld', 'Scrubs', and 'Real World/Road Rules Challenges'). With only two and a half seasons, we made it through the entire series in a little more than a month. The thing is, we never pulled all the discs out. If you open up his DVD tray right now, I can guarantee you that there will be at least one 'Arrested Development' disc in there. Guarantee. Would bet any money, at any odds on this. Ideally, I would want someone to call me, and while talking to me actually walk into his house and ask him to open his DVD player. I don't know how hard I would laugh during this whole scenario, but I do feel that I would need to clear the room of hard objects that I might inadvertently thrash into.

You see, it's always there in case there's nothing else on, or it's late and he just wants to watch something good before bed, or he just finished a movie and don't want to get up and put something else on. He always has 'One in the basket'. (In fact, 'One in the tray' was the third option for the title of this idea. Originally, I called it 'One in the clip', but then felt it didn't work for me personally. I don't even own a gun, much less many guns to necessitate a gun rack.)

I guess, I'm just glad that my life runs markedly smoother because my parents, through their socially questionable purchases, have inspired in me the practice of keeping supplies on hand.

Kudos to them.

Word.