The Junk Drawer

What is a junk drawer? You know what they are. Every home has one. A junk drawer is a drawer somewhere in the house that you put things that you don't know where else to put them. These things don't fit into any of the other drawers in the house and they are items that you don't want to throw away because you might need them in the future.

Growing up, my parents had a junk drawer. As a matter of fact, they had two. We loved to look in them to see what kind of "treasure" we could find. Thumb tacks, string, a spool of thread, rubber bands, glue, an assortment of pencils and pens, scraps of paper, some change (which we liked to sneak out of the drawer), missing parts from toys, a pair of pliers, a screwdriver or two, scissors, and a lot of other things I fail to remember. But the drawer was always there, and if we lost something or needed something, we could usually find it there.

When got married for the first time, my wife and I unconsciously started our own junk drawer filled with the same type of things that were in the junk drawer from my child hood, except for the toy parts. Throughout the time we were married, it never let us down. I think when she left, she took it with her along with most everything else. While single, I really didn't have a junk drawer. I don't know why. Then, I remarried and we started a new junk drawer. After a year, we moved into a different house and as before, started another junk drawer that lasted for five years.

We then moved to Missouri and took our junk drawer with us...we actually had two and just dumped them into a box and when we got to our new house, we dumped them into a drawer and added and subtracted from that drawer till we moved again. But this time, we were bound and determined not to have a junk drawer. Well, things haven't worked out that way. While unpacking our things, we came across odd items and things that didn't fit into any of our other drawers. So I put them in a drawer in the back laundry room and a new junk drawer was begun.

I am a firm believer that humans have a basic instinct to create a junk drawer. I am sure that when we lived in caves, we reserved a part of that cave for "junk". At our jobs, there are junk drawers. I am sure that there is even a junk drawer on the International Space Station. My dad even carried one with him. He always carried odds and ends in his pockets...pocket knife, pencil, change, screwdriver, rubber band, and some other items that had unknown functions to us.

Junk drawers. What are they? They are a place to put bits and pieces of our lives that are important to us at any given time, but have no home of their own.

What is in your junk drawer?

Junk Drawer Ingenuity
The Junk Drawer Blog