THE KITCHEN DRAWER

It seems that all households have a place for all those little things for which there is no other special place. Many choose a kitchen drawer for this purpose, as did I. In mine, lovingly known as the 'junk' drawer, there are two screwdrivers (a flat head and a Phillips head), (amazingly many inanimate things get screwed frequently), a pair of pliers, and scissors. Since string is elusive when you need it, any that you get off something gets rolled up, stored along with all the cotton that comes out of pill bottles. Cotton comes in handy for adding alcohol and killing mealy bugs (providing you expect to live a long life to make the time spent worth while), used to spread oil, polish, or even to remove excess oil or polish. Address labels that come with requests for charitable contributions, which (since the invention of email and online payments), would take a lifetime to use 1/100th of what clogs the mail system. Do the marketers really believe that sending something else for the householder to throw away will produce enough guilt to get money sent?

Rubber bands, corks, a paint scraper, a roll of wrapped wire that can be cut off to tie plants, varying sizes of bottle and plastic caps (in the event that one is destroyed and I have nothing with which to cover the container it came from), get added to the instructions that come with small tools and instructions for some plants and other minor instructions I could never find, even if I remembered they were there. Add to that, several packages of seed that my mind had already turned into great flowers and herbs so I no longer needed to go to all the work of planting, watering and weeding as they were destined to live in my mind. The ground will never see them.

What started out to be a haven for all these and so many more wonderful items, soon to be life-saving and useful, has become a mass grave for odds and ends that only hit my consciousness when I open the drawer and say, "Oh, is THAT where I put that?", or, "I've got to remember where I put this next time I look for it" ...neither of which are likely to ever happen.

On the far side of the kitchen is a drawer which neatly stacks the silverware; knives are neatly fit into knife blocks, but as I open the remaining drawer, I discover that the small gadgets drawer is now looking like the junk drawer. I've failed to downsize the kitchen after I stopped cooking for 2 adults, four teen-agers, and two younger kids over 30 years ago (Parents of adolescents will understand that means I was cooking for twelve.) Over the years I have been given all kinds of small boons to the kitchen such as melon ballers (for those who don't know, the balls taste exactly the same as slices, with far less labor attached), strawberry hullers (I just use my thumbnails), five garlic presses (creatively invented to do everything to garlic but remove the odor), perogi presses (in two sizes, neither of which I ever got to use), ravioli presses (also never used because I figured making those to be almost as time consuming as gnocchi making). I've not mentioned candy thermometers (though I haven't made candy in more than 20 years), frying thermometers (though I no longer deep fry food), wooden skewers (though I no longer make shish kebob and have thrown away my gas grille and charcoal Weber because I am sensitive to nitrites).

Stores take a yearly inventory. I think I am missing some important lesson in life. My life would be less of a blivet (stuffing three pounds of excreta in a two pound bag)if I took time to rid myself of all the stuff I no longer use or need. I have almost learned that food is never wasted if I throw it down the disposal rather than stuff myself to pain. While the same holds for 'stuff', finding a resting place for my life treasures is equally difficult.