Stuff And Nonsense

Stuff, like intestinal E. coli bacteria, is something we all have. To put a finer point on it, what we have is stuff; what other people have is junk. Stuff is basically trappings we keep, don’t use, but may need in some unforeseen, you-never-know future emergency. The problem with stuff is, like mildew, silverfish and the water hyacinth, it tends to take over.

Even clean freaks have at least one junk drawer, an inviolate cubby crammed with rubber bands, outdated rabies tags, pens that don’t work, ticket stubs, greeting cards, upended palmetto bugs, bits of string, birthday candles, keys that don’t seem to fit any lock, masking tape with no beginning, and one or two half-filled boxes of melted cough drops.

Read the entire article in the April 2011 issue