Madam, what do you keep in your drawers

Why...

Are our drawers filled so randomly?

When I need a suitable coffee cup for a cappuccino it’s right top shelf above the fridge. A small cup for an espresso is top left above sink. I mean, isn’t everyone the same?

Random draw pulling in other people’s homes searching for something is an occupational hazard when cooking for friends.

I used to think the way we fill our cupboards and drawers is 100% random. When you move house your ultimate goal apart from not strangling builders or recommending the electrician to a good vivisectionist is unpack, unpack, unpack.

Who cares which drawers contain toothpaste, soup bowls or neckwear? You just stuff it in relieved that another cardboard box has bitten the dust. However, having recently gone through the experience (more like trauma) of moving, my wife and I have found our subconscious has been in overdrive.

Because I unloaded kitchen apparatus and my back creaks bending down or stretching up, weight was the driving factor where things got stored. No more mixing bowls on bottom shelf or air fryer on a top one. Now heavy things are all on middle drawers… but being chief unpacker also had other advantages. Things my wife enjoys but I dislike, such as pulses, peanut butter and gherkin’s miraculously now appear at the end of cupboards whereas things I enjoy are right at eye level dead centre; Marmite, Branflakes dark chocolate and cheese biscuits.

...and another thing

Bedroom storage is a war… even if you have a battalion of cupboards, it’s never enough. My wife is the same shape as she was 20 years ago and so she has a smorgasbord of clothes to chose from, a choice she thoroughly enjoys adding to and I encourage with a bemused grin. How can I criticise her for wanting another pair of shoes when I spend twice as much on some part for my car! As with my weight yo-yoing from 107kg in January to 94kg now, I am a little light on the clothing stakes as most are now too big.

Question. My wife made me keep the trousers I previously could not get into as a target. I have now managed to shoehorn myself back into them.  However, does that mean the trousers made by Obi Wan the tent maker when I was very heavy should be given to charity so I see no way back to eating croissants and eclairs? Or do I keep them just in case. My wife is pretty firm. Out they go… we need the room.

...and another thing

There is one item of such earth shattering importance I am amazed as to where it gets hidden. Loo paper. Never trust a bathroom with a mangy few sheets left on the roll and no obvious storage in the bathroom for replenishment. Of all the most useless things in life is the storing of spare loo rolls outside of the loo. No. There needs to be plainly visible; at least three spare rolls before I will venture inside.

Apart from a barium enema, there is nothing  more demeaning than to have to shout for help in someone else’s bathroom when you realise you cannot complete the task without paperwork.

Yet despite all, I still cannot find my favourite bottle opener… no doubt it’s in the sock drawer.

Stay safe.

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