Monday Memories - Junk Drawers

Calvin cleaned out the top drawer of his dresser today.  Trevor, who is 38 years old, responded to the news first, “Nooooooooo!  He should have waited for me to be there.”  Varied but similar responses trickled in from the rest of the kids.  Trent texted, “I can just imagine the treasures.”  Abe wondered how much money he found and Cali asked how many Reese’s Easter Eggs from 2010 were in it.

Ever since the kids were little, they have loved pawing through Calvin’s junk drawer.  His collection of bullets, old keys, record books, bow ties, coins, felt tip markers of various colors, sizes, and mark-ability, toothpicks, mints, receipts, garden seeds, drill bits, screwdrivers, knives, crumbs, and old candy are considered valuable.   But when Trevor saw a picture of the clean drawer he said, “Well it doesn’t look like it’d be fun to go through now . . . just like an empty treasure box.”

Junk drawers are funny things.  They’re one thing to a kid and another thing to an adult.  I’ve got one in the kitchen and I’m a wee bit embarrassed when someone stops by and I need to get something out of it in front of them.  I act as if no one else has ever seen or owned one.  Yet where would I be without my junk drawer?  Trying to fix a vacuum without a screwdriver, that’s where. The items in a junk drawer are in and of themselves unembarrassing and essential to the smooth-running of our household; but the combination makes me self-conscious, therefore I hide it.

            

Another funny thing we humans hide is our weight, as if no one else in the world owns any mass. How long has it been since you were honest when someone asked you how much you weigh?   I don’t think I have been since second grade when all our vitals were charted on the back wall in the classroom.  When I excitedly told a classmate my number was one of the highest, she told me I wasn’t supposed to be proud of it.        

            

Creams, potions, surgeries, clothing—they’re all designed to veil our age as if the years we’ve lived are something to be ashamed of.  Why aren’t we as a people proud of our wrinkles?  Winkles should mean we’ve stayed in the game a long time and should be happy to still be playing.   

            

I don’t know why we hide junk drawers, weight, and age.  It seems silly that intelligent beings that can figure complex math, read a written language, and see a fib a mile away try to hide the obvious.  So though I may not know why we hide these things, I just know most of us do—with the exception of kids.  They find treasures in junk drawers, pride in weight, and know that good things happen when you get a little older.  Let that be a lesson to me:  see things through a kid’s eyes more often, they seem to have things figured out.

Zeph and Joe