About that Drawer

Dear J.,

The first thing you should know is that I grew up in a home without a junk drawer. Then I got therapy. Lots of therapy. It cost me a few thousand dollars (well spent, I add) to realize that a little disorder in a life is a good thing, an indicator of relative mental health. Honestly, if you have to make to-do lists that say things like "chop carrots," "roll up hair," "buy one-cent stamps (postage going up)," something is, well, off. I found such a list composed by my mother after her death in that special place on the end table by her special place on the love seat and it made me hyperventilate. I used to make lists like that until I got the therapy. You would not have liked me then. (I'm still friends with the roommate I took in in 1980--I met her after the divorce when I had to find a way to afford the mortgage and keep the house, the only asset I'd ever had.) Anyway, just a few days ago, she reminded me about the day she offered to mow the lawns in the front and the back yards and I told her, Okay, but you have to cut them on the diagonal both directions like they do mowing the baseball fields because you get that really neat crosshatched look. Or something to that effect. And she says now that she knew right then I needed therapy but was too polite to say so.

The junk drawer is located to the right of the built-in gas stove in the kitchen. Please notice that the cooktop is made of black glass. This means that it shows every speck of dust when the sun sets and every single spatter of cooking oil after I use the wok. Notice that it is pristine. Here is what that takes: a sinkful of clean suds. Dawn dishwashing liquid is best, it takes the grease away, so they say; a clean dish rag; three wipedowns with the dish rag and the Dawn suds; two papertowels to dry the surface and notice the cooking oil (the smears are obvious) that you've missed; fifteen more papertowels dosed with Windex to eliminate the smears. Another friend once watched me clean the cooktop and that's when she says she knew I needed a little more therapy.

The junk drawer you are now beholding, that is to say, is one of the supreme achievements of my therapist, I'm positive of this.

You can throw out those weird vials that look like test tubes; they came with the occassional long-stemmed rose from the car dealership along with the flower preservative packets. I never liked roses, especially roses from the auto repair department. I mean, I may be a woman with an ailing Toyota, but I'm not stupid and I'm not that desperate. PUL-LEASE.

The rubberbands. Good lord, what do you do with twenty-five years of those? Return them to the Newspaper Agency? I couldn't throw them out. Every time I tried, all I could imagine was some poor seagull at the landfill with one of those rubberbands garroting it and a nestfull of starving little baby seagulls waiting for mom to come home to disgorge some quarter-pounder with cheese morsels.

I have no idea anymore what those keys belong to, but everyone knows you can't just toss old keys in the trash. My mother (the listmaker) had a fully developed scenario involving trashpickers at the dump who could match cast off keys with the addresses in your junk mail in that same bag of garbage even if the mail was coated with coffee grounds and then let themselves into your life somehow.

The coupons. I know. They are all out of date. I know. I could never remember to take the coupons with me to the grocery store. But you'll appreciate how carefully I cut them out, no? Right along all those dash-lines with the little scissors showing the way?

That one thing way in the back. I don't know what that is. Some doohickey that fell off something that, if I threw it out, my husband (god rest his soul) would finally ask me about. Did you happen to see the doohickey that goes on this thingamajig? and I'd have to admit that I deep-sixed it and I'd get that look that said something like, You have to be joking. Any engineer would know that THAT was important. How would you feel if some editor threw out your best paragraph in the entire essay? Well, I've had that happen and it, and I, survived. Just so you know.

Oh, that's where those reading glasses ended up!

The Wrigley's Spearmint gum sticks that have dried to the consistency of nail files. Nostalgia. I used to love that gum when I was a kid. One piece, though, and you can feel the sugar attacking your dentifrice. (I can still recite the paragraph on the back of the Crest toothpaste tube, in case anyone asks. I memorized it the year I stopped chewing Wrigley's Spearmint gum, around age ten: "Crest has been shown to be an effective decay-preventive dentrifice when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care.")

Miscellaneous--batteries, maybe dead (like me!), appliance light bulbs for defunked appliances, screws, seed packets from five years ago, used birthday cake candles, promotional magnets for the refrigerator, leftover currency from Canada and Mexico--sorry, you're on your own.

Don't forget to prune and water the bonsai. The instructions are in the manila envelope marked, PRODUCT WARRANTIES AND INSTRUCTIONS.

Love,
Aunt Dawn