Clutter

I had a friend whose mom would indiscriminately throw stuff out. He’d leave a newspaper article folder on the coffee table. Gone. Receipt from a recently purchased shirt. Tossed. Brochure on, well, anything. Out. Car keys. In their appropriate place, but not on the kitchen table. He’d go looking for his mail and ask her about it. She’d never deny it, but would guiltlessly explain that she didn’t think it was anything.

I thought it to be an odd habit. Until recently. I now find myself heaping kid stuff together to clean it up, making a mountain of books, bin of trains, bin of Little People, parking lot of cars and pile of garbage. I no longer find all the pages of the little books, sort the crayons, etc. I healthily, happily purge the bits and pieces of kid’s toys and puzzles that have no matches, components, completions or otherwise apparent purpose.

I figure that if the toys don’t have all their parts, they’ll never really be played with again. So the purging is in fact necessary. Really who can blame me when in my bathroom alone, there’s four kids books, a 10 of spades, two buttons, the crayon formerly known as flesh, a stuffed dog, and the BC alumni magazine.

Suddenly I see myself 15 years from now, fishing through pockets for unimportant items just to proactively intervene against pending clutter. In the meantime, I am wrought with piles of mail, little weapons with no warriors, a trail of legos that would make Hansel proud and masterpieces just waiting to be made if only the markers, coloring books, crayons and water colors were in one place.