Junk Drawer
Milestones in our lives are important. When we are children, our grade in elementary school denoted our pecking order in my neighborhood. Later in youth, the more important birthdays determined when we could get our driving permit, enter the military, head off to college, and vote.
But I knew I had become an adult when we were able to designate a junk drawer in the kitchen.
When I first married, all of our worldly possessions fit in a little car top carrier we rented from U-Haul. Everything we had was utilitarian. There was no extra. We had only what we needed...and just barely that.
Over time we began to accumulate the detritus of modern life. Pens, bread sack twist ties, scissors, and keys we could no longer identify use for, but couldn't throw away for fear we would someday need them.
Eventually diaper pins (ask your parents kids), batteries, note pads and an occasional screw found their way into the drawer.
In the fullness of time as our family and income grew, our homes began to include garages. Now the junk in the drawer could expand and be classified as house junk or garage junk. Categories of junk and little sets of drawers for screws, nuts, bolts, nails, and a lot of "not sure what these are but we might need them for something" began accumulating in the garage.
Then grandfathers began to share their junk with me. Folger cans of roofing nails, assorted nuts, washers, screws found their home on the workbench, and like some hardware black hole, created a gravitational pull, attracting more essential junk.
I love going to local big box stores to look at ways to organize our junk. Shelving, cabinets, and little drawer organizers seem to call to me. On occasion, I answered the call. I covet organization, but also suffer from occasional entropy.
I have done a reasonable job of both acquiring enough tools and garage junk to validate my masculinity, until I visit a farm or ranch and visit their machine shed. My grandad had one. It smelled of dirt, hay and oil. There were welders, saws, tools, and barrels of various kinds of lubricants for tractor care. Feed sacks, car parts and implements occupied various corners. It seemed as though anything that could ever be needed for any purpose on the farm was in there somewhere, and it seemed like Grandpa knew just where it was. I am still impressed by that since I still can't find mates for some of my socks.
But I knew I had become an adult when we were able to designate a junk drawer in the kitchen.
When I first married, all of our worldly possessions fit in a little car top carrier we rented from U-Haul. Everything we had was utilitarian. There was no extra. We had only what we needed...and just barely that.
Over time we began to accumulate the detritus of modern life. Pens, bread sack twist ties, scissors, and keys we could no longer identify use for, but couldn't throw away for fear we would someday need them.
Eventually diaper pins (ask your parents kids), batteries, note pads and an occasional screw found their way into the drawer.
In the fullness of time as our family and income grew, our homes began to include garages. Now the junk in the drawer could expand and be classified as house junk or garage junk. Categories of junk and little sets of drawers for screws, nuts, bolts, nails, and a lot of "not sure what these are but we might need them for something" began accumulating in the garage.
Then grandfathers began to share their junk with me. Folger cans of roofing nails, assorted nuts, washers, screws found their home on the workbench, and like some hardware black hole, created a gravitational pull, attracting more essential junk.
I love going to local big box stores to look at ways to organize our junk. Shelving, cabinets, and little drawer organizers seem to call to me. On occasion, I answered the call. I covet organization, but also suffer from occasional entropy.
I have done a reasonable job of both acquiring enough tools and garage junk to validate my masculinity, until I visit a farm or ranch and visit their machine shed. My grandad had one. It smelled of dirt, hay and oil. There were welders, saws, tools, and barrels of various kinds of lubricants for tractor care. Feed sacks, car parts and implements occupied various corners. It seemed as though anything that could ever be needed for any purpose on the farm was in there somewhere, and it seemed like Grandpa knew just where it was. I am still impressed by that since I still can't find mates for some of my socks.
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