The Minnesota Farm Woman

Every household in every state and even in every country has a junk drawer. I’ll be the first to admit that ours is probably worse than most. Cleaning it out is usually a project done on a cold day in January every couple of years, and I think I am running little behind schedule. It is hard to keep a junk drawer neat, because one is always adding stuff and then rummaging around looking for other stuff that probably isn’t in there anyway. I couldn’t open mine the other day when I was searching for the dull scissors.  I couldn’t find the sharp scissors, which are usually in a special scissors holder attached to the wall and I was hoping that someone hadn’t put them THERE.  Anyhow, I had to stick my hand into that jammed-up dark drawer in which there could have any number of objects that could poke me and draw blood.  That drawer holds everything except scissors or the kitchen sink, but even that might be there if I dig deep enough. I thought I would share with you the top ten most useless items that I found: 1) Coupons for cough and cold medicines which  expired in 2013.  2) Rubber bands that are apparently dry rotted, as the two I tried to use snapped apart and kind of crumbled in my hands.  3) A rawhide dog chewy of unknown age, partially chewed. 4) Seventeen loose batteries of assorted sizes.  I might be exaggerating a little here…wait…no…I’m not. 5) Two packages of fresh batteries that were purchased because I couldn’t remember if we needed batteries or not. (These made the useless list because we didn’t need any). 6) Several of those little packages of salt, pepper, and ketchup from long-ago takeout food. One of the ketchup packages is sticky and I think another is empty, but I don’t want to explore any further right now without biohazard gloves.  7) Two flat head screwdrivers, deemed useless because they were buried at the bottom of the drawer where I couldn’t find them and I gave up and used a butter knife. 8) One old butter knife with a broken tip. 9) A broken pedometer or two…wait…or three. I must have worn them out. Thanks for believing me on that little white lie.  10) Gravy-splattered directions on how to fold cloth napkins into different shapes for festive family meals. Note: I have no cloth napkins. If I did and they were folded into fancy shapes for a festive family meal, I would never hear the end of it, just like the time I tried to make Thanksgiving more festive by  accessorizing the turkey with blue cheese stuffed pears and sugared grapes a`la Martha Stewart.  I should really tackle that drawer today, but I am too busy looking for the scissors. Besides, it’s not a cold day in January yet.