I Think My Parents Have Reached Senior Citizen Status

This could be a very serious warning sign.

You know when people get old and they start to acquire these little quirks, like when my grandparents would pocket-dial us from their cell phone and leave 10 messages that consisted mainly of them talking about Shingles cream and bologna sandwiches? Or like when the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding uses Windex to cure everything?

Well, I guess my parents have finally reached senior citizen status because they’ve found their weird quirk: toothpaste hoarding.

So I’m innocently taking a shower Friday afternoon at my parents’ house (the house I grew up in; the house I no longer have a room in, but whatever). We usually keep the toothpaste on the shower rack. Come to find, toothpaste is now the only thing my parents are keeping on the shower rack. No soap to be seen. No shampoo. Just five large tubes of toothpaste. And clearly this is not what a shower rack is made for, and halfway through the shower the tubes start jumping off the rack at me. It could have gotten ugly if I didn’t have cat-like reflexes.

Now, you all may think I’m overreacting. But I am genuinely concerned. Have they become forgetful and just buy toothpaste every time they’re at the store because they don’t think they have it? Have they become obsessed with dental hygiene because they saw some special on Good Morning America and have suddenly acquired hypochondriac-tendencies? When I have children, are they going to be the weird grandparents that “collect” things like napkins and sugar packets? I want my mom and dad to be the cool grandparents, and I won’t go out without a fight (sorry future husband).

So I just had to get that off my chest. Toothpaste hoarding, a possible harbinger for other things.