[SantaClaus]

It seems that some folks have a kind of mental illness when it comes to either hoarding stuff or, in the case of a gal I know, shopping. When she and her husband moved to Summerfield they had to ruthlessly downsize, especially since they were buying a furnished model home. But this gal just couldn't "turn off" the shopping compulsion, so she ended up filling every out-of-sight void of that house (her husband would never allow things to accumulate in the open or she'd have stacks in the guest bedroom). Once she ran out of room she'd instead buy "gifts" for family; mostly junk from Marion Market that she thought was cute but nobody else had any interest in. Now that we've finally convinced her we have too much stuff already she has started stowing her stash in her snowbird neighbors' houses; houses she volunteered to keep watch over. This past month, one of those neighbors died and their house was sold in 3 days (sight unseen?) and she has been in a panic moving her stacks from one snowbird house to another! She swears she's thinning it out. All I can say is I hope he passes before she does, because the embarrassment and betrayal would be very hard on him. I really do think it's a sickness, and I'm worried it may be in my blood, too.

Edited to anonymize.