The Junk Drawer

So yes. My new phone  has ingested several thousand of my sister's old contacts and a dainty portion of my own, and I am straightening out the mess by hand. It's coming along well; I'm nearly done with the back forty and should be finishing up 'long about month's end when the stagecoach comes through.

I am making a point to delete all the contacts I don't recognize. Then I add in the ones that aren't in there that should be in there.

I know what you're thinking. There's no point in deleting, Boomer. It doesn't matter how many people you have in your contact list. You don't have to memorize them anymore. The idea that you need to slim down your contact list is a sign that you're an old person.

But I feel compelled to a degree of tidiness here that is reflected nowhere else in my life. Give me this.

Because this thing feels like a junk drawer, full of orphaned knobs, mystery keys, old twist-ties. Just shut the drawer, I'm told, but the sight offends my senses. I just know one of those unknown contacts is the potato masher that will turn sideways and I'll never be able to open that drawer again.

Here's another sign I'm old: I have already deleted quite a number of people that God deleted first. Without a twinge, mind you: I don't litter the roadside with teddy bears and I don't need dead people in my contact list unless the smart phones get way smarter.

Once I've deleted my mystery contacts on the new phone, I go to the old phone to add in people I really do know. Yes, those contacts are supposed to be on the new phone, because I shlorped them over with a handy shlorping app, but they're not. I'm not troubling myself with "why" anymore. As it is, I feel lucky I didn't pick up the contact list of the dude walking down the alley when he stopped to drain his Weimaraner.

Lots of people have trouble throwing things away. They think they might need that metal clip some day, or that doorknob, or that hand-scrawled note that no longer makes sense. But I'm surrounded by perfectly useful items like mops and scrub brushes that apparently I've never found a use for. So hitting "delete" is easy for me.

After all, my own brain has decided all on its own what I don't need to know anymore. I'll be searching for a name, or a word, or the reason I walked into a room, and my brain says "Shh, there, there, you don't need to know that," and I've finally come to accept it. It's been a two-step process for my brain: first, go to the Data Department and poke a bunch of holes in it; second, pop over to the department that is supposed to monitor all the loss of inventory in the Data Department, and sing to it until it quits investigating. There was about a five-year lag between step one and step two but now I'm feeling better about it all. I'm pretty sure the third step will involve wearing a medical alert bracelet.

In the meantime, this doesn't hurt my writing at all. You have to get really creative with your metaphors when you can't come up with the word you wanted in the first place.

Meeting The Neighbors

Hi! Yes, nice to met you, too! Carl, did you say? Oh sorry. Kale! Kale? Kale! And who is this little buttonhead in the stroller? Enid? What a sweet name! Hi, Enid! Hi, Enid! Aww, Enid's shy. Welcome to the neighborhood, Kale and Enid!

Gosh, isn't that typical, I just meet someone for the first time and I look like I've done my hair with a fidget spinner. Sorry! I usually fix it first thing in the morning. I've got that big cowlick on the one side, and the flat spot in the back, and it just takes a little floofing but I must've gotten distracted this morning. Anyhoo!

Yeah, I'm in between haircuts, so it's a little weird. Right, Astrid? You haven't even had a haircut yet, have you, honey? Cute little button. Oh, Enid, right, sorry.

The garden? Thanks! I try. It looks a little funky now because the spring bulbs are all done and it's just a bunch of brown crap, and the fall perennials haven't really come in yet. I'd have had a nice new mulch down by now but I haven't even started weeding. There was all that rain, and then it got so dang hot, and you know. Yeah, last week would've been perfect, but I had a thing. Monday. And I had another thing Tuesday. I had all the things last week, I swear. Anyhoo.

Sheesh, you'd think I could've gotten that little postage stamp of a lawn done by now, right, Chive? Sorry. Kale. Mower's in the shop. Four weeks out. Swear to God, every year. You think you're going to get to it, and then the rains come, and all of a sudden it's up to here, and you haul out the mower and she's-a no work. I called a company and you know they want eighty bucks for that little patch? I don't think so. Kids used to do a whole yard for three bucks when I was coming up. Yeah, that was a long time ago, you're right about that.

Anyway, nice to meet you, Chard--no, I'd better not shake hands, I've been in the chicken shit. Ordinarily you wouldn't see me out in public in an old shirt and torn pants and these clodhoppers, but hey, you caught me just when I was thinking about getting to some of these weeds. No sense being a fashion plate in the garden, right? Be nice to get all this done and shower up and put on a nice outfit and enjoy the place. You all should come back in a few days. Bring your wife too. Pardon me? Gerald? Bring Gerald. We'll sit out back and have a beer. Not for you, Aphid! Ha ha! You're too little!

Enid. Swear to God, I've got a mind like a, like a, you know. You drain your spaghetti in it. Mind like a cauliflower.

Colander! Yeah, that's what I meant. Hey, why don't you and little Edna pop inside for a second, and I'll write your name down so I don't forget it, because otherwise I totally will, and I'll give you my email. Come on in. No, no, no need to take your shoes off, I'm going to have to vacuum soon anyway--obviously!--it's usually a lot more picked up in here, but I had that thing. You want some water or something? Sure. Hang on. Let me just rinse this glass. I've got a note pad around here somewhere. It's under that stack of mail, I think. Don't trip on the laundry basket, I was just getting around to that. Let me shut that door--no one needs to see my sewing room while I'm in the middle of something! I'll just shut this one too.

Help with all this? I never really thought about it. I mean, why pay someone to do something I'm perfectly capable of doing? Huh. Your mom, you say? Oh, your grandma. Well sure. She'd be a lot older than me. She's how old? Oh. Huh. Every other week, huh? Sure. I'll bet it looks real spiffy. You know, if you're into that kind of thing. Sometimes I think people care a little too much about appearances, if you ask me. I mean, no matter how much you clean, it just gets dirty again. We're all going to drop dead soon enough anyway. Bam. Finito. Here's my email. Thanks for dropping by! Careful of that door on your way out. Wind gets ahold of it and it can have a helluva kick to it. Smack you right in the fanny.

Broccoli-Boy.