Junk Drawer

I have this junk drawer in my kitchen. Okay, I have two junk drawers in my kitchen. One is beside the sink, and it holds things like elastic bands, bus schedules, kitchen scissors, odd screws and bottle caps, cellophane to seal jam jars with, a hand-held cherry pitter, a few candles and batteries, and, for some reason, a yo-yo (green, with a Kermit-like frog face on it).

The other is the one on the opposite corner of the kitchen, at the end of the counter. It started out its life as a stationery drawer, but somehow, other things migrate into it, to the point where it becomes hard to find a pen when you want one. What, I ask you, is that pair of safety goggles doing in there? And there's a tiny little clip-on radio, with earbud headphones. It believe I bought it at the dollar store a while back, when I was briefly convinced that having some music to listen to while I was walking would make me go walking more. It didn't, because I could never figure out how to actually find my favourite station on that radio; it sort of just randomly selects channels when you push the button. (Well, at least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.) So now the radio is parked in the drawer, and my butt is parked in the chair next to it.

Then, there are three rolls of scotch tape in that drawer. Three! Whenever I actually want some, I can never find any, but now that present-wrapping season is over, there they all are, congregated in the drawer, mocking me with their adhesive presence; they, and that big roll of packing tape sitting right front and centre. But the masking tape I keep looking for in there, that's just simply not there any more. It'll probably resurface come Christmas time, when I want the scotch tape and am long done with using masking tape to label plastic containers of food to go into the freezer.

There is also a very small container of Playdoh, which came home in a bag of Halloween candy in the fall; it's probably dried up by now. Next to it is a silly eraser, some pretty stickers, a small calculator, ink cartridges for my fountain pen, and mechanical pencils with and without leads. I'm fairly certain somewhere in the recesses of the drawer there are some ballpoint pens, too; they're probably buried under those notebooks whose pages are all written on already so I can never find a piece of paper to scribble a note on when I need one.

Yes, you're right, of course, it's about time that drawer was cleaned out and reorganized. I usually do it about once a year or so; I think this time, it's been quite a bit longer than that. But part of the problem is that life changes - not just from Scotch Tape Season to Masking Tape Season and back again, but onwards from Playdoh Season to, perhaps, in the not-too-distant future, Reading Glasses Season (or whatever else one might need for middle-aged life). And I haven't quite figured out what this next season holds in junk drawer requirements.

Life, the Universe, and Junk Drawers. I'm sure I'll get to it eventually.