All was quiet. All was peaceful. There was just a bit of eerie music playing. The room was filled with only black and white light. Suddenly the music reached a crescendo. My sister screamed first. Followed by our cousins. Of course I was a bit braver. I screamed last.

Half the crowd dove into their sleeping bags. We brave males peaked over pillows at the images oozing from the Zenith television. Yes, it was just another Saturday slumber party at Grandma’s.

On this particular night, we were enjoying Steve McQueen in the movie “The Blob.” The concept of the movie is simple. This thing that resembles a large glob of marmalade falls to Earth from outer space and begins growing in size as it gorges itself with everything in sight. Of course hunky Steve McQueen and an army of teens try to fight off the Smucker’s menace. Do they succeed? I’m not about to give away the climactic ending to this cinematic classic that was somehow overlooked by the Motion Picture Academy at Oscar time.

Yeah, that was a few decades ago. It was just a spooky movie. Right? Or was it?

I walked into the kitchen the other evening. There was no eerie music playing and Steve McQueen was nowhere to be seen, yet I sensed something sinister. I heard something. Faint at first. And then it grew louder. Or was it my imagination playing tricks on me? My eyes darted to the cabinet doors beneath the sink. I crept closer. My hands were on the knobs. In one quick motion, I threw open the cabinet doors.

Oh, the horror! There is was. A huge glob, not unlike the Blob. And it was growing. I turned away. But then I saw it in the space between the wall and the refrigerator. And there. Behind the kitchen door. And in the drawer next to the stove. Run for your lives!

No, this terror that is taking over kitchens everywhere is not a creature from outer space. It is something much more familiar, yet just as terrifying.

Bags. Bags. And more bags. Where do they all come from? They breed, I tell you. Our kitchens are overflowing with bags.

There are plastic ones and paper ones of all shapes and sizes. There are clear ones like the ones in which you put produce. There are yellow ones and greens ones and blue ones. There are black, shiny ones you get—I don’t—at cosmetic counters and thin white ones you bring home with pastries in them. There are brown paper ones that are often two-ply in which the bag boy puts your Wonder Bread beneath a six-pack of Pepsi. And thick but small brown bags in which he puts your gallon of ice cream so it won’t melt on the ride home.

Why must we save every single bag? I hope many of us are recycling. That’s great, but somehow many of these bags make their way into our kitchen cabinets, the space between the wall and the side of our refrigerator, utility rooms and back porches and never seem to get recycled. Why?

“Well, you never know when you just might need a bag,” one might say.

True. But why so many?

“You never know what size you might need,” one might add.

True. Many of our older relatives find it necessary to put an item they are sending home with us—such as a pot of leftover macaroni and cheese or a few slices of pie on a paper plate or a small heirloom—into a bag. Whether the pot of beans has easily managed handles doesn’t matter. It goes in a bag.

“Here, Sugah,” Aunt Constance insists. “Let me put that plate of country ham in a bag for you.”

“Uh, that’s OK, Aunt Connie,” I say. “I can carry it just fine on this plate here.”

“Nonsense. Here. Put it in this bag, Sugah. I insist.”

Don’t argue with her. You could threaten her with bodily harm, but that country ham is not leaving the premises without being in the confines of a brown paper bag.

Actually, some of the bags in Aunt Connie’s house have been there long before I was even born. They just keep stacking up. Why? Well, it’s easy math. Her kids have long since left the house. It’s just she and Uncle Ralph. But they are still big eaters and she says she goes to the grocery store approximately three times a month. Each trip requires bringing home a load of groceries in three brown paper bags and four plastic ones. A total of seven bags. Seven times three is 21. Thus, just from the grocery store, Aunt Connie gets inundated with 21 bags a month or 252 a year.

Each month she uses two of the plastic bags to line the little tulip-shaped trash can in her bathroom. She sends food home in a couple of the brown bags each month. A few others assist her in saving young vegetable plants by covering them when the weatherman calls for frost. Last, but not least, on rainy afternoons, she’s been known to grab a plastic one and pull it over her Aqua Net stiffened hair when she goes out to the road to get her mail.

So what are we down to? Still 200-plus. She and Uncle Ralph have lived in the same house for 32 years. So you’re looking at about 250 plus bags each year for over 32 years. Scary isn’t it. Almost as scary as the blob in that movie that scared us little kids so many years ago. Hey, at least this thing isn’t devouring anything in our house. Right?

Well, have you ever wondered where your keys go when you can’t find them? How about the mail you remember bringing into the house and never seem to find again. How about the rolls of tape or that pair of sunglasses or that pencil you just had a minute ago?

Could their disappearances have anything to do with all those bags in your kitchen? Could it be we’re creating a monster right under our noses and sinks that have appetites for devouring anything and everything in its path?

The next time you hear the bag boy ask “Paper or plastic?” you just might want to consider the consequences of your choice.