By: Revanche

Prep to Move Out: Part IV

April 25, 2008

The catchall drawer. Does anyone remember it? The one drawer in the house that seems to suck everything into its depths, and some things never emerge again? All the drawers in my desk are starting to go that way, but the middle drawer is the worst.

Digging out the contents revealed: about nine hundred fifty pens; twenty highlighters; twenty pencils, wooden or mechanical; fifteen Sharpies of various shapes, sizes and colors; solid and liquid white-out; staples; tiny little folding papers to make those puff-up stars; two jade bracelets; a Masterlock the combination of which has been lost for all time; a tiny magnifying glass in a leather case; my Discover-to-go card that expired in June 2006; a half dozen sheets of really cute but juvenile stickers; 7 AAA batteries, two of which were dead, two which are questionable; two old pagers; old house keys to my best friend’s house, but for the door that her brother broke about 7 years ago; and a one legged compass. That’s just for an example!

Whew! I can’t believe that all of that could fit into one drawer, two inches deep! Granted, it’s about two feet across, but my goodness! That’s way too much stuff. I checked every pen, pencil and highlighter and threw away about a hundred, divvied the pens up into “good-keep” and “good-give away” piles, and now have a sack of perfectly good pens that I don’t want. I’ll take them to work, there’s always a need for pens there.

I can’t bring myself to throw away that lock. I know I’ll never remember or figure out the combination, but it’s such a good solid lock, I just can’t do it.

Likewise with the pagers. I know no one uses pagers anymore except the doctors I work with, but I’m pretty sure not a one of them will want my teeny tiny light blue pager. It’s really cute, it fits in the palm of my hand! It’s only 1.5″ x 2″, and still has the original silver chain/clip, and matching light blue belt clip. The only reason I stopped using it was because I finally got a cell phone back in 2001. Huh, I wonder if that’s why I had that box of AAA batteries? It does use a AAA battery …..