I believe that in every kitchen in all the lands there exists one drawer accumulating once-necessary, useful, or sentimental items for thirty, forty, fifty years or longer. Perhaps your junk drawer isn't in your kitchen, maybe you don't even have a kitchen just an electric tea kettle on a tea trolley with colorful boxes of Oolong, Earl Grey, Celestial Seasonings Tea.


I don't know the details of your life. Perhaps you have no heat and wear black gloves with glow-in-the-dark skulls, the fingertips cut off so you can type. Yes, I can imagine you, bundled up with layers of clothing, a winter scarf wrapped jauntily around your neck, necessary things placed carefully within reach, a light layer of dust settling on your glass desk that is L-shaped and modern, austere. So you might not relate to what I believe about drawers; that's fine.


I have mentioned the kitchen drawer phenomenon to several people in the course of my daily doings. What I discovered was several women groaned, saying all of their kitchen drawers were junk drawers. They said it was genetic, a curse, and something they were ashamed of admitting. Not what I expected. I've been thinking about this for a few weeks or maybe months but took no action, other than collecting data.


Well, that's not entirely true. Little by little, I'd sift through one section of the drawer until yesterday when I pulled the drawer out, placed it on the kitchen table and began examining the contents. Mon Dieu! What treasures, what trash, what to do with each tiny thing once holding some measure of importance? I don't know what you would do in the same situation because maybe your junk drawer is in your garage or tool shed or at your parents' home and you would feel awkward going through their stuff which is probably mostly yours.


There is no need for you to deal with drawers you may or may not have, no reason you need to ruffle your feathers or even read about what I am doing against my own background of spiders and nightmares. Just trying to do some fall cleaning, get my money's worth from my payment to the Garbage Man and let go of things no longer needed. In case you're curious, I sort by what is still useful, what could be used in an assemblage, what can be recycled, donated, sent to the landfill. This task can be done with or without music, my choice at the time, Elvis singing gospel.


IN

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