The Day The Pantry Died

I want you all to brace yourselves for some alarming news.

Are you ready?













My pantry died today.


Technically it was probably yesterday. Anyways, I don't really HAVE a pantry in this apartment. I have a little laundry closet off of the kitchen. See?

To make up for the fact that I'm lacking a pantry (which I didn't realize until after signing paperwork and walking into my apartment for the first time...) I decided to invent one. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention. So I went on down to my friendly, neighborhood Ikea to see what my options were. I considered hutches and armoirs and what not, oh my!, but then I saw this wire basket cart thing in the laundry section (hello, it would go in the laundry closet! meant to be!) and it was just too good to be true. And affordable.

Mike has hated it pretty much from the moment he came home from Fort Gordon, back in March. Granted, it has been bulky to roll in and out of it's spot when the laundry needed to be done and I probably have put more weight on it than is allowed (which has probably, ultimately, contributed to its downfall) BUT STILL!!! I was so resourceful in thinking of it and I was so proud of myself when I discovered it and I loved that surrogate pantry as if it was the fruit of my loins.

The pantry of my loins died today. One of the wheels came off last night, and I really didn't have the time or the energy to deal with it, so I saved it for when I got home from work today (would that I could go back in time and be with it in the moment when it needed me most...) I emptied all of the baskets onto the dining room table (feeling very proud of myself that I was going to fix this without the help of a man around) and turned the frame part on its side, so that I could inspect just where the problem was. Turns out the screw, that held the wheel that broke off, broke itself in half. It's stuck in the frame. It's stuck in the wheel. It's stuck in my dining room. Here's how it's all going down right now:

(that's the skeleton of my pantry, there in the back, by the bookshelf)

I texted Mike and said 'we're eating out of pantry containers for dinner.' He laughed. And then he said 'I might have a case at work' (We're not going to go into how much fun his employers have been since he got back from Army training. It should be illegal how much fun they've been, and truth be told, it probably is.) And I said 'Yay! But do you have a pantry solution? We've tried all my ideas and they've failed fantastically.'

As I sit here looking at my dining room table, I can't help but think that this is how hoarders are born. Something tragic happens (Hello! The death of my pantry! I LOVE pantries! It's my favorite part of the kitchen! I even love the WORD pantry!! This is so traumatizing, they could make a movie about it. I'm in the depths of despair over here.) and then you just start hoarding. We have to fix this, like, yesterday. I cannot afford to be on one of those shows where people watch you and feel sorry for you but are also disgusted that you ended up living like that and then they send a hazmat team to clean up your house.

WHAT IS TO BECOME OF US?!?! This is EXACTLY how Mrs. Bennett felt when Lydia ran off and married that AWFUL Mr. Wickham!! I'm sure of it!!!