Miscellaneous

I have been purging my house of clutter, which unfortunately means you'll be subjected to my discoveries as I purge. Last week I dared to pull the big box filled with miscellany from my coat closet, where I'd put it in exhaustion or desperation more than six years ago after moving into my house. I found therein a truly random collection of items that could have no other home than a box labelled "miscellaneous." Here are just a few examples:

- A paper with the combination to my bike lock. That would be the lock for the bike I had in junior high. The combination is 94263. If you can find it, you can have it.

- A small stick that some vague sense tells me was once of great sentimental value. It is now simply a stick, mildly irritating to me since I clearly once judged it worthy of saving but cannot recall its former significance. I shall relegate it to the outdoors, where sticks belong.

- A rock with the words "Moon Teeth" printed on one side (in my writing) and a picture of a moon with a tooth on the other side. It is dated 1994. Puzzling. I suppose I shall throw it outside with the aforementioned stick, although if anthropologists find it 100 years from now, I'm betting it'll stump them even more than it stumps me. Perhaps all the more reason to do it.

- Two 35 mm films, unused - If only I'd found you a decade or two ago. Alas too much time has passed, and we must say farewell.

- A single velcro hair roller, separated from the rest, sad and alone, consoled only by the fact that it sits along two other rejected cylinders (see "two 35 mm films, unused").

Along with the above random items, I also discovered a bracelet and several pairs of earrings I'd long since given up on, as well as my junior high and high school yearbooks. And so it is that I take the following lesson: A miscellaneous box is where objects - junk and treasures alike - go to die. Don't let this happen to you.