What started it all? Oh, the lid to the garbage can, situated in my kitchen pantry closet, fixated on staying wonky and I’d had enough.
So, I deemed it closet clean-out time. You must realize that this was not something I woke up planning, hoping, or expecting to do for the next three hours of my Saturday morning; I wanted to work outside.
First things first, I pulled out the trash can with the temporarily askew lid. It seemed relieved to sit up straight while housed for a bit in the laundry room.
The next logical step was to reorganize the dozen or so miscellaneous extension cords which hung on a big hook on the closet wall. There are newish white cords, especially long, brown cords, short, pink “appliance” cords, and cords which we always called “snakes” with a bar of several outlets.
That over-sized hook also houses several yard sticks; one old one, the Sponsler’s Superette one, is missing part of its 36th inch and another one marked Serial No. N.Y.C. Penna. R-4 is obviously quite old. I don’t know when we acquired these but they’re fixtures in the closet.
Also hanging from little pieces of unassuming string are a couple of 48-inch long “yard” sticks, one from, The Everett Bank, and yet another from the Amana Colonies in Iowa. My husband used to use these for drawing musical staves on black boards back in the day when he taught music theory to eager college students.
These were the unruly culprits which troubled the garbage can lid. I could have rearranged these troublesome accouterments and job done. But, there was too much stuff jammed here and there, to let it go now.
On the pantry floor between the dry cat food bins, the dust pan and the trash can were jammed various large jars of pantry items like mayo, capers, my favorite former IGA pickles, Metamucil, and such. As it happens there is now room to place these overflow items back upon the shelves, their preferred spot.
But the most troubling items which littered the floor are bottles and bottles of various kinds of wine, and cream liquors. One would think we really like to drink over here if you took a random look into our pantry closet. Don’t let your heart flutter too hard, nearly all of those were gifts and most have been in there for quite some time, unopened.
I haven’t touched wine since I was pregnant back in 1989 when I lost my taste for it, and my husband has a glass of wine with a meal maybe once every three months. Thus, the backlog. I’m the cream liquor gal in the house. Mainly in the winter I add a splash of a variety of creams to my hot tea along with some cleansing agents such as cinnamon, ginger, plain gelatin, or chocolate.
What to do with this large, compared to our usage, collection? It’s currently all pulled out of the closet, sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for a new home; where, is to be determined later.
So, back to the hinterlands of my pantry closet. This is where it gets interesting. I pulled out of the very back corner of the space, a lovely three-tier bamboo steamer set, a new aluminum tea pot, a really nice, bamboo picnic silver-ware, napkin caddy, a gallon jug of white vinegar, and two, handled ice-cream pails with lids.
Here, let me say that I’m learning finally in this advanced age, that the back of my pantry closet is not for storage, it’s a dead zone. I don’t think I actually put stuff in the back, I shove it there when I don’t know where else to stash it.
At this point, I’m conflicted, because I might want this or that thing someday but not right now. It’s too cool to toss it. If I give it away prematurely, I may regret it. I have a slight history of getting rid of some stuff and at some point in time, searching high and low for it, and it’s gone.
I made an executive decision to leave the picnic caddy, the buckets, and the vinegar visible but toward the back of the pantry closet floor. The steamer set has been moved to the pots and pans drawer, and the tea pot is visible on a top shelf in another kitchen closet should the current one meet its demise.
So, the back of the closet dead zone has been enlivened and the whole pantry is now much more utilitarian than before. Somehow, now, my pantry reminds me of the children’s rhyme, “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean.” It’s leaner but meaner.
The lid to the garbage can is straight and tidy. I know what’s in the closet. All is right in my storage world, for now.
It’s kind of funny though, that “stuff” grows like weeds in our closets, not because we’re particularly materialistic, and I’m not a hoarder, he-he, but because we might be of an age that gifts accumulate. Let me conclude my thoughts about the back of the closet with a kind of public service announcement by promoting the giving of gift cards to folks of a certain age. Not only are you giving them an open-ended gift to use at their discretion, you’re giving them the gift of clutter-free living and freedom from stuff in the back of the closet.