My Shoes are in a Drawer

A few years ago we got a new kitchen. (Use Google if you don’t understand how that is possible.) We knocked the old one through to a room we hardly used, and spent more than many people’s yearly salary having everything gutted and replaced. Despite the additional space, we ended up with less storage than we started with. And so ensued a year of not knowing where anything was, because Barbara would frequently reorganize everything she hadn’t been forced to throw away, in an attempt to fit it in.

Last year we decided to replace our bedroom carpet. Apparently, it wasn’t worth doing it without having the cupboards replaced, the walls re-plastered and redecorated, the bed replaced, the chests of drawers replaced, the curtains replaced, and doing much the same in another room as well. As before, it took a whole year and we ended up with less storage than we started with. And as before, there then ensued a prolonged period of not knowing where anything was, because Barbara frequently reorganized everything left from her new round of throwing things away, in the new round of trying to fit stuff in. This time it was doubly frustrating because she often couldn’t remember what she’d chucked.

Eventually I got her to understand that she must tell me when she moves something I obviously need to know about.

But on the very first occasion that she remembered, I was left dumbfounded. My shoes are in a drawer! Sorry, does not compute. My shoes are in a drawer? An ordinary drawer? To try to process this, I intone it. “My shoes are in a drawer.” I’m thinking of having it tattooed on my arm.

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Aniseed Balls

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