The Junk Drawer

Dear Zen Mother,

My bride and I recently purchased our first home. I was perplexed to discover she immediately designated a drawer in our kitchen as the “junk drawer.” As a bachelor, everything I owned had its place and junk was thrown away. Could you explain this notion to me?

Dan from Newbury


Dear Dan,

The junk drawer plays a vital role in any home. As a newly married couple with no children, your junk drawer looks drastically different from that of a married couple of 12 years with, say, 19 children (my husband insists I only have three kids but that’s impossible).

For example, your junk drawer probably contains an extra set of keys to your Audi, emergency phone numbers for the dog sitter, personalized leather luggage tags from your bank (they love you), extra batteries for your Blackberry, several paper clips and a take-out menu from Joppa Fine Foods.

My junk drawer contains keys of various shapes and sizes. Since none of these keys open any doors in my house or belong to any vehicle, I can only assume they are the keys to Al Capone’s safe, the public bathrooms in the lost city of Atlantis and the back gate to Area 51. My junk drawer also contains the names and phone numbers of babysitters scared away in the last decade, a foam drink holder from my bank (they hate me) and several dead cell phones in need of batteries.

In fact, the contents of my junk drawer are now multiplying like something in a B horror film, spilling onto the kitchen floor, making a left at the back stairs, burping into the playroom and oozing under the basement door. But aside from these obvious aesthetics, the junk drawer also plays a valuable role for the busy mom.

In a world of “Mom, where’s this; Mom, where’s that?” we busy moms can use the junk drawer to catch several seconds of peace.

“Mom, where’s my hairbrush?” I’m going online where no one can possibly see me but my hair needs to be perfect.

“Check the junk drawer.” Mommy’s busy sending an email to I_can’t_believe_my_life has_come_to_this.com.

“Mom, do you have any string?” I’d like to trap my little brother in a giant spider web so he can’t reach the remote control.

“Check the junk drawer.” Mommy’s busy writing her novel about a woman with 19 children who slowly descends into madness.

“Mom, I owe Nick thirteen dollars. Do you have it?” Since money magically grows in your purse I’ll be able to siphon off of you for the rest of my life.

“Check the junk drawer.” Mommy’s busy planning her escape by pitching a bottled message out the kitchen window and into the nearby stream.

Unfortunately, we do not live by a stream but when spring comes and I hear my husband say, “What the…?” upon hitting several glass bottles with his lawn mower and reading the enclosed “Help Me! I’m being held hostage by cloying, life-sucking people claiming to be my family,” I’ll simply shrug my shoulders and tip my head toward Grammy Z.

So let your bride have a junk drawer. It may one day hold the key to a little sanity.


Zen Mother appears weekly in The Newburyport Current. Do you have a question or topic for Zen Mother? Send it to editor@zenmother.com. She’d love to hear from you.