Verboticism: Tossaphobia

'Is that toilet paper on your clothesline?'

DEFINITION: v. To compulsively wash and excessively reuse "disposable items", like paper cups, plastic utensils or kleenex tissues. n. An obsessive compulsion to reuse disposable items, often combined with a disposal inhibition.

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Tossaphobia

Created by: pieceof314

Pronunciation: toss uh foh bee uh

Sentence: Debbie stared up at the clothesline and started adding it all up: the hanging toilet paper, the compost piles, the stacks of newspapers and half-opened junk mail in the family and living rooms, the baskets of trash and used personal items organized by type in the backyard and the garage, and the old clothes in the hallways and spare bedroom, the basement full of broken, loose and dismantled electronic equipment. When pressed about the sheer oddity of the picture, Nancy just shrugged her shoulders and said, "I just can t bare to throw theses things out becuase we can reuse them." Debbie thought these folks suffered from tossaphobia, the inability to throw anything away.

Etymology: Toss - to throw away and phobia - fear of

Points: 1340

Comments: Tossaphobia

Nosila - 2008-04-19: 00:37:00
Good one...an obsessive/compulsive thingy.

Raquelle - 2008-04-19: 03:21:00
I like this one... it's the genetic hoarder's disease!