You know how one thing happens and then when you go to deal with that one thing, it turns into a few more things, and before you know it, it's become a whole other thing?
Last night, I was putting something away in a kitchen drawer. When I went to push the drawer back in, there was resistance, like something was caught at the back, so I pulled it out again and the thing that was caught descended down into another drawer. So I pulled that drawer out, but in doing so the thing then hit the floor behind that bottom drawer. Then that bottom drawer no longer pushed in all the way because of something that fell behind it. I had a look and not only was it the one thing (a plastic accordion-style folder that we stick receipts in from probably four years ago), but in fact quite a collection of things that all came from "the junk drawer" at the top. These things have been falling for a while now. There was some kind of a double ended phone cord, some Chinese food menus, two bundles of cheques, and the aforementioned folder. There was no way I could reach with my arm behind the bottom drawer to get in and get those objects, and thereby be able to push the drawer back in.
I explained my predicament to husband and asked where his "grabber tool" was that he has out in the shop (sometimes used when screws and other small parts fall where they shouldn't when he is doing whatever he does on vehicles). He had a look around, showed me where he usually keeps it, declared it wasn't there anymore and that he had no idea where it was now. Also, I should stop looking around so much in case I see a Christmas present he has stashed out there.
Night came, I left the drawer (which is my baking drawer by the way) half-way open and went to bed.
Morning came and the drawer was driving me nuts. There had to be a way to take it out. These are soft-close drawers installed a few years ago which up until now, we have never needed to take out. Of course, this one was right up against a wall and at the bottom. I went trolling around on the internet because there is a video for everything. Well, no, there's not. I watched videos about other kinds of drawers, I watched videos from the company that made these drawers describing all their wonderful features and how to install them, I watched one video in a whole other language with subtitles, but none of these helped me and I got more and more angry.
Husband was up at this point and said he would try to find out how to remove the drawer. After a bit of video watching, he started fiddling around with the drawer. I had emptied it already, the counter top now overflowing with containers of flour, sweetened coconut, half bags of raisins and walnuts, half bags of brown sugar, four, yes four, boxes of semi-sweet chocolate squares, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, little jars of sprinkles, partially used squeezable icing tubes in various colours... you get the idea.
Husband then decided it might be easier to try things out on a drawer that wasn't so far down so he could look underneath and see the mechanisms, so I emptied out my plastic container drawer. At this point, I used an empty laundry basket to hold all the bits and pieces of that drawer. Husband continued to roll around on the kitchen floor, making inquisitive sounds, exasperated sounds, finally positive sounds. He removed that drawer! Yay! So then he proceeded onto the original bottom drawer which he was also able to remove. Yay! Now it was my turn. I moved all of the junk drawer items that had fallen down to floor level, grabbed the vacuum, cleaned the inner recesses, saw how disgusting my floor was, cleaned that part, noticed my baseboards right beside that, wiped those down, realized the inside of my baking drawer was pretty scary, vacuumed it out and wiped it out as well, continued on to wipe out the plastic container drawer, and then told husband he could put the drawer back in now.
He did. It didn't close properly. It kept hitting the drawer above. He fiddled around some more and eventually declared that the drawer above it needed to come out and could I empty that one, please. Sure - that was the tea towel, kitchen cloth, oven mitt (and kitchen scale and huge container of double A batteries) drawer. All that now got dumped on the table, drawer came out, husband continued to fiddle around. He was successful.
By now, I'm realizing I have WAY too many tea towels and kitchen cloths. I started purging. Get rid of the ones that are shredded. Get rid of the ones that are clean but have stains that have never washed out. Get rid of the cheap crap ones that don't actually absorb anything. Move those ridiculous bright orange Sham-Wow cloths (whatever happened to that guy?) somewhere else. Seriously contemplate if we need to keep that tea cosy that we used to use twenty years ago and haven't used since.
Then I tackled plastic containers. I take a lunch every day, and of course, there's always left overs to stash away. I put all the bottoms out on the counter and tried to match tops. If a top was found, it got to stay. If a top was cracked, it went away. Why do I have so many jar rings in that drawer?? Where do all the bottoms go? Why do I have so many extra tops, but no bottoms?
And the baking drawer... I decided to use large zip-lock bags and labelled them "raisins and other dried fruit", "nuts and coconut", and "cake decorating". This helped to at least organize and contain some things. It's still a pretty full drawer.
I also looked at the junk drawer. I had purged some items from there a while ago, but I did another small purge. I still have about twenty keys which are lacking doors to open.
In the end.... BEHOLD...
my plastic container drawer which will never look like this again.
Here is the tea towel (cloth, scale, oven mitt, battery, and yes, tea cosy) drawer. Not quite so immaculate, but much better.
Joanne, do you see your towel in the place of honour?
I'm not showing you the baking drawer or the junk drawer. A girl has to keep some secrets.
I really wasn't what I was planning on doing with my morning, but there you go.
