Oil Hoarder

We hear a lot about hoarders. Most of them seem to keep everything. Yet there are perhaps what I'll call limited hoarders. An old friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, might fit that bill.

Cloyce would change the oil in his cars himself. Fair enough; lots of folks do that. In his case, it was two vehicles; his and Mrs. Cloyce. That was it. And they didn't drive much. They might make 5,000 miles a year on each car, but that was about it.

One evening Cloyce asked me over to help with something, and we trounced down into his basement. You would have thought I was in the motor fluids section of an auto parts store, judging by the amount of oil and filters and anti-freeze, brake and power steering and transmission fluid which lined the shelves in a back room. If I had to guess I'd say there were about 50 cases of motor oil alone. "Why do you have so much oil and stuff, Cloyce?" I asked, actually somewhat in awe.

"I maintain our cars," he answered.

"Yes, but all these fluids for two vehicles?"

Cloyce responded, "I buy it on sale. Then it's there when I need it."

I protested, "Okay, but this much?"

"I never want to run out."

Trust me, folks. He wasn't going to run out in his lifetime. Nor were his kids. Maybe not even his great-grandkids. Cloyce had stored up a lot of oil.

Shaving soap and motor oil

Now I certainly don't mind a bargain, and the Internet can be a wonderful thing. I just recently found via the web two items I struggle to find in brick and mortar stores: shaving soap and wrap around coffee filters. I discovered very good prices and free shipping for reasonably large quantities of each. The deals were so good that I almost doubled them. But it occurred to me that it gets a bit silly to plan too far into the future on items which will surely be available later and under similar deals. Put simply, I don't need to buy five years ahead on shaving soap.

Me Pops had a friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who changed the oil in both his and his wife's (I'll call her Mrs. Cloyce just to give her a name) cars on his own. No issue there of course. It's his right. So he was constantly on the lookout for good oil prices. No issue there either. It makes good sense. Only he went, I believe anyways, more than a bit overboard on that last point.

He reached the point where he had accumulated 48 cases of motor oil, stacked all around his basement. That's 24 quarts per case for, let me get my calculator out...1,152 quarts of oil. And almost two dozen filters, twelve each for each one of their cars. Especially considering he and Mrs. Cloyce were retired and only drove around town (they flew to major destinations) Cloyce had far more motor oil than he would ever need. By his own admittance he only had to change the oil once or twice a year per car. Yet when he stumbled upon a sale, he'd buy another case. Or two.

That's going just a little beyond the call of duty I think. But hey, his money, right?