The Third Drawer Down, On The Left

The System of No System

There is a drawer in our kitchen. Probably in every kitchen.

Ours is the third one down, on the left, opposite the dishwasher.

I open it most days. I’ve never once been able to find what I was looking for. It’s a black hole. Things go in. Nothing comes out.

I should make it clear that no-one designated this drawer. There was no family meeting. No vote.

The drawer simply began collecting things at some point in the early 2000s and has been storing them ever since.

What’s In The Drawer

A roll of brown parcel tape.

Three batteries of unknown charge. They might be new. They might have been there since 2009.

A small pair of scissors that don’t cut anything.

Numerous screws.

Half a dozen keys. None of which seem to open anything in this house. I’ve periodically tried them.

Rubber bands.

Several takeaway menus from restaurants that closed during the pandemic.

A torch that doesn’t work, kept in case of an emergency in which we’ll then remember doesn’t work.

A stack of instruction manuals for household appliances, some of which were replaced many moons ago.

Several small notebooks and one in particular in which someone has written, in pencil, the single word Tuesday.

Plus an assortment of other rubbish I won’t bore you with.

The Logic Of The Drawer

The drawer operates on one principle, and one principle only.

If you don’t know where something goes, it goes here.

Of course, it’s not much of a system. It’s the essence of the absence of a system, given a location. A small geographical concession to the fact that life produces objects faster than anyone can categorise them.

The drawer accepts everything. It doesn’t judge. It also gives nothing back.

I’ve looked for the small scissors several times. I know they’re in the drawer. They’ve been in the drawer for years. I’ve looked but never manage to find them.

They’ll surface eventually, probably while I’m looking for something else, and by then I’ll have forgotten why I wanted them.

This is also part of the system that isn’t a system.

My wife walked in during one of my periodic excavations. She stood in the kitchen doorway, watching me push aside four Allen keys and a dead Duracell.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

I paused, looked at my hands, and realised I genuinely had no idea. “I don’t know.”

“Excellent,” she said, not missing a beat. “Let me know when you find it.”

She turned and walked out , leaving me alone with a handful of mystery screws that I was now apparently defending.

The Drawer Gets The Last Word

I’ve thought, occasionally, about emptying the drawer.

Sorting it. Throwing things out. Restoring some kind of order.

But I know what will happen. I’d empty the drawer. I’d feel briefly accomplished. Within three weeks the drawer would be full again, with mostly the same things, because the drawer isn’t a problem you can solve.

The drawer is a category of object. It exists wherever there are people and things and a slight unwillingness to make decisions about them.

There are numerous screws in our drawer.

I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know what they’re for. I’ve never considered throwing them away.

They could be important.

I’ll never know.

They stay.