If You Grew Up With Boomers, You Remember This Special Kitchen Drawer

Each generation carries certain quirks that are totally normal during the era of their youth, but once a newer, younger generation takes over the reins of culture, those quirks quickly become labeled as odd. If your parents or grandparents are from the Baby Boomer generation, you might find yourself perplexed by that one drawer in the kitchen that's always filled to the brim with takeout freebies.

Sauce packets from countless trips to fast food joints, seemingly thousands of forks and millions of napkins; that's the drawer we're talking about. The one that only ever gets opened when things are put into it, and that's never opened with the intention of actually taking things out. Boomers have some old-school cooking habits that baffle younger generations, to be sure, but even those don't include using expired takeout sauces from the '90s. Younger generations, such as Gen X and Millennials, largely see that unfortunate sauce drawer as a waste of space. Boomers, however, see it as a collection of useful items they technically paid for and might someday need. The only problem is that every time they order takeout, they get new sauces, napkins, and the like — eliminating the need to use anything from the drawer and simultaneously contributing to the ever-growing collection of thingamabobs.

Baby Boomers are the generation born between 1946 and 1964, meaning they were born to parents who had survived first the Great Depression and then World War II. The Great Depression was a period of immense economic scarcity, reflected in the odd foods people ate during the era that are still talked about today, from the meager two-ingredient sandwich to the infamous water pie. People's pantries were lacking, and getting sufficient nutrition was hard. It's not unreasonable for parents who have survived such scarcity to intentionally raise their children (the Baby Boomers) with strong messages of valuing everything that is given or paid for, especially food.

Today's economy hardly reflects those sentiments. It's largely built around fast consumerism, where there's always going to be something new to purchase tomorrow, making today's purchase obsolete. The younger generations grew up with hundreds of brands to choose from and with unique products available at any hour of the day, having no need to store tiny items like takeout napkins and simple sauces for "a rainy day." So, all in all, there's a reason for that overfilled drawer. And maybe Boomers don't need to let it go — as long as they learn to gauge the expiration of fast food condiment packets, they're not really harming anyone.