The problem with stuff,
thought Clarice, was that there were never enough places to put it. She ran out
of shelf space long ago along with wall space for more shelves. Soon she had to
start putting things in things. She stored extra toilet paper in the box spring
of her bed. She kept spare toothpaste in the hollow tubes of the hidden toilet
paper rolls.
When she had kids, they soon
picked up on her space-saving mania. They started small, discovering pockets at
a young age and keeping what odds and ends they could find there, but soon
their pockets were full. “Be creative,” she told them. “Look for empty spaces
and fill them. There’s always more room somewhere.”
Not long after, she began
finding blocks in diapers and marbles in noses. Her proudest moment, however,
was the day she found her kids, not even eighteen months old, had filled her
boots with their breakfast. After all, they weren’t eating the food, and she
wasn’t wearing the boots. Two unused things now only taking the space of one.
She couldn’t have been happier.
- Originally mailed to B.N. in Virginia
No comments:
Post a Comment