Out of the Closet

I was lying in the recliner staring at the television praying for a comet to hit my house. I had stomach flu. I had my little companion on my lap and I started wondering if other houses possessed such an item. It is an old pan, quite worn and not good for much, but perfect for one thing, which is why we keep it around. It even has a name. The Barf Pan. For times you may not make it to the other room, or for placing on the night stand of a sick child. Then, in my state of semi-delirium, I started thinking about other things that most houses probably have. Here is my short list.

1. The Junk Drawer. There are several versions of this drawer, but I believe most kitchens have at least one. Ours contains keys, flower seeds, manuals to various appliances, restaurant menus, random coupons (I can almost see Lois cringing), and a device that will make our neighbors' security alarm stop if it goes off (again) during the day when he is working 30 miles away and she is in court (she's an attorney, not a serial felon).



My desk junk drawer currently holds key chains, batteries that are probably dead, a large white feather, scraps of paper with names and numbers of people I don't remember why I have their names and numbers, three old cheapo calculators, some orange rubber ear plugs, about a hundred pens and pencils, a button that says I Am Loved and another that says Minnesota for Bush/Cheney '04. Don't ask, I don't remember.

2. The Coat Closet. Near the front door, for guests to hang their coats (preferable to piling them on the bed, especially if they are overnight guests). Ours has coats, boots, hats, mittens, scarves, a vacuum cleaner and a Bissel steam cleaner. Because we don't have an appliance closet.

3. The Junk Closet. Randomly placed in a hallway somewhere. Because bedrooms have clothes closets and bathrooms have linen closets, there has to be somewhere else for your other junk. Like board games, old towels, a couple of boxes of art supplies that are on the bottom and you have to move a mountain of crap to get to, a sleeping bag, a small tent and an AeroBed. The AeroBed would actually fit into the tent. But if you were out where you needed a tent, there would be no electricity to fill it. You could fill it and put it in the back of the van to haul it. But if you had an AeroBed in the back of the van, why would you take the time and trouble to put up a tent? I'm just saying. But I digress.



4. The Cookie Sheet/Pan That Won't Come "Clean." You buy a cookie sheet or some sort of pan, you use it, you wash it. It gets brown stuff. You put it in a dishwasher where the temperatures are the same as the surface of the sun, it's still not all shiny and new. I fail to comprehend this. When we lived in Duluth, Lois brought us one of her ridiculously delicious rhubarb pies, which was in a cake pan. One night for supper, I pulled out a pan and cooked some meat or other in it. After supper, we finished off the rhubarb pie. I washed dishes and then decided to take Lois' pan back to her. Except I couldn't tell it apart from mine because it was the same size, shape, had the same handles, and the same brown-ness in the same places. So I took both pans over and guess what? Lois couldn't tell them apart, either. I don't know if we ended up with our biological pan babies or not, but every time I use that pan, I think of her. Which is always a good thing.

Here's to never needing your barf pan.