My Dad Never Met a Jar He Didn’t Like
Ordinary Tuesdays
Observations from everyday life. The small moments, familiar places, chance conversations, and ordinary experiences that quietly reveal something larger.
I’m still in Costa Rica enjoying the Pura Vida, but that doesn’t mean I get to skip the day-to-day chores. So there I was, tidying the kitchen. The dishwater was loaded. The leftovers were put away. And there I was with an empty jar in my hand, about to toss it into the recycling bin.
Then my immediate thought was, Don’t throw that out. That’s a really good jar.
And I started to laugh. You know that kind of laugh that happens when you realize, holy shit, I’m an old guy. I am my father!
It would not be an exaggeration to say, “My dad never met a glass jar he didn’t like.” His workshop was full of heavy glass jars with airtight lids. They were all full of nuts, bolts, and nails he’d pulled out of the used boards he salvaged or got at an auction. Big coffee cans too!
This isn’t going to be me sharing the sage and valuable lessons my father taught me about recycling and environmental stewardship. No, this is about my realization that a tiny piece of ridiculous automatic behaviour that once belonged to someone else now is apparently residing firmly within me!
And I know it’s ridiculous because my mom, my brothers, our neighbours, and I used to tease him relentlessly about it. It never changed his behaviour. The man loved a good jar.
Jar Retention
No doubt there are dozens of utterly mundane actions that we don’t recognize as someone else’s…until they literally slap us in the face. The way we fold something. Save elastic bands. Cut sandwiches. Turn off lights. Load a dishwasher. Keep a particular tool. Say some expression we once rolled our eyes at.
We all have those moments.
One day:
Oh, for Christ’s sake. I’m Dad.
This actually isn’t the first time this has happened to me. The last time was at Value Village. I had purposely gone on a Tuesday. Why? So that I could get the seniors’ discount, of course.
There I was in a thrift store, wanting a discount of all things; the irony of the moment was not lost on me.
WHAMMO! I had become my grandmother. A woman who wouldn’t tell a living soul her age…until she realized she could save a buck by admitting it. Back in the day, that was a total eye-roller at our house too.
But what if a jar isn’t just a jar? And a discount isn’t just a discount?
What if it’s about how much of the people who raised us are we carrying around…without knowing they’re there?
And perhaps you don’t notice until you’re old enough that the behaviour has become yours.
And that’s the particularly horrifying part. I haven’t merely become my father. I’ve become my father in precisely one of the ways we used to make fun of him.
When you’re younger, certain old-person behaviours look faintly ridiculous because you’re viewing them without the circumstances that made the behaviour sensible.
Dad saves every decent jar.
Geez, Dad. It’s a freakin’ jar!
Grandmother wants the senior discount.
OMG Gran, fifty cents!
And then decades pass, and one morning you’re standing in your kitchen holding a mason-style jar thinking:
Well, I’m certainly not throwing THIS out. This is a really good jar.
When exactly did this stop becoming ridiculous behaviour?
That’s when I started wondering (actually it’s closer to wandering) whether some of the things we identify as “old people behaviour” aren’t really old-person behaviours at all. Maybe they’re behaviours whose logic becomes visible only after you’ve accumulated enough experience, changed circumstances, different priorities—or simply enough years—to understand the calculation.
And there is a wonderful little generational reversal embedded in it:
First we observe the behaviour.
Then we mock the behaviour.
Then we inherit the behaviour.
Then, horrifyingly, we understand the behaviour.
At what point do the ridiculous things older people did stop looking ridiculous?
How many things did I misunderstand simply because I hadn’t lived long enough yet?
Shitballs, do I owe Dad and Gran an apology? Or will a wink towards the heavens suffice?
Related Reading
If you enjoy following ordinary observations that turn into bigger questions, you might also like:
- If I’m Retired Do I Still Need to Make the Bed?
- Retirement and Social Connection: The Danger of “Bowling Alone”
- How Do You Build a Meaningful Life After Retirement?
- Before You Retire – The 10 Things No One Tells You to Do
Research Note
The observations in this article are informed by ongoing reading and research in psychology, sociology, adult development, aging, friendship, purpose, identity, and life transitions. While these essays are observational rather than academic, many of the underlying ideas are grounded in established research.
- “Imitation in the Family: A Study of Older Parents and Their Adult Sons.”
- The Ten Stories: Intergenerational Transfer of Values
Cynthia Ross Tustin is the founder of I'm Thinking of Retiring, an online publication exploring the psychology, purpose, and everyday realities of life after work. A retired Fire Chief, former ICU and Emergency Room nurse, instructor, and policy writer, she combines lived experience, research, and a lifelong curiosity about human behaviour to write thoughtful essays on retirement, identity, purpose, friendship, and the ordinary moments that quietly reveal something larger. Through her Retirement Field Notes and Ordinary Tuesday series, she encourages readers to approach this next chapter with curiosity rather than certainty.
