Junk Drawers

 Whether you like it or not, most children grow up with some of  their parents’  bad habits. Tis true. I read it on the internet.  I swore that I would be nothing like my mother, but there are things that I say and that I do that are pure “Georgie.”  Short for Georgiana Victoria.  I like the even shorter version, “Loon.”

 One of the major ways I am like my mom is in the fact that I have more than one junk drawer. Most people have a junk drawer. When I was growing up, I was “sent” to the junk drawer just as much as I was to fetch her a Cuppa coffee. (Yes, I thought it was a brand name.) 

“Vickie…in the junk drawer, under the telephone book, and to the right by the duct tape and the staples, and under the  pack of batteries is a little white button. Bring it to me.”

 So, I would go to the junk drawer and expect to see the items all organized like she made it sound. But it wasn’t. It was a mess.  The Sleeping With the Enemy crazy husband wouldn’t be too happy with my mother. Our junk drawer had weird things in it. I can picture it now. There was a little dog collar, package of sewing needles, tweezers, an index card with a recipe on it, matchbooks, a couple of my dad’s real estate calling cards, a small school picture of my sister looking like a boy, and a thousand other little items. The weirdest thing I remember being in there was a row of caps. You know, that red line that you put in a cap gun and shot? We never put them in a fake gun. We sould run a rock over them to set them off. How weird that I remember doing that. I guess it was a big thing in the 60′s to shoot fake guns at the bad guys.

 I almost forgot about the pills. I don’t know if they were aspirin or Midol or LSD. There were about 3 of them in there. For years. I don’t think she ever cleaned out her junk drawer. She just added to it. A drawer hoarder.  I should also add that she was a coffee table hoarder and oh, she had another junk drawer in the side table next to her precious spot on the couch. I should just call it the Smoking Section.

 Now, since that  particular junk drawer was beside her spot on the couch, it held her personal junk. I remember there being a magnifying mirror and tweezers in there. She was always picking at her face. That’s also where she kept the metholade. I don’t know why she didn’t keep that in the medicine chest in the bathroom, but she was always using that on us. If we had a scratch, we also had red metholade on us.

 When I got older, it troubled me if I did or said something that was like my mom. There was no way in hell I was going to smoke cigarettes or drink Cuppa coffee. I had enough second hand smoke in my lungs to match exhaust from a car. But, I did have a junk

This is my junk drawer circa 2011

drawer. Hell, I think everyone has junk drawers. But, I have one too many drawers.

I also have a pantry. It is organized, but not with food items. I turned my pantry into a junk pantry.

 You have to understand that my apartment is very tiny. I have an overabundance of kitchen cabinets, however, so I had this closet pantry empty and waiting for….junk… I’m going to clean this out soon….I really am.

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