Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 05, 2020

Kitchen drawers! Grrrr!

Or…. You can organize the crap you have so you don’t have to spend all day looking for it. 5S isn’t just for manufacturing facilities. It works pretty darn good in the kitchen.

Time to organize that junk drawer.

One of my first CoVid projects, both drawers. Still took me several searches over two days time to find that small set of hex wrenches I knew I had just seen.

So who is the hoarder, Arlo or Janis?

Last time I cleaned out the junk drawer, the following week I wound up needing 3 things I had thrown out….

Been there, Arlo, and always doing that. Never know when I will need 22 loose rubber bands, 37 twist ties and six bottle caps until I throw them out. It’s called a junk drawer —- not a useful tool drawer.

Arlo I so agree. However, I agree with Jason as I organize everything. It’s one of my very strong points that after babysitting for years and teaching the kids how to put away their stuff and all. I was always asked to babysit and the mom said they were so happy you helped them organize their rooms and stuff.

Or, you can throw it away the week before you need it. Happens to me all the time.

I prefer to spend a few extra seconds putting things in known places than spend minutes or hours looking for them. I’m slowing converting my wife … it’s been ten years.

Very common for me as we moved to a new place last November. All neatly reorganized but I don’t remember where I reorganized the crap to.

(surprised to see text of, “CRAP” in this cartoon; disapproves of this text)

Everybody has a junk drawer….right?

This struck home. I have everything, but can’t find it when I need it. So get another one. Then you have everything twice. Throw it away.so you can buy it three times.

Sour grapes, amigo.

Just buy a new one. Then you will immediately find the old one.

I used to help my dad with home projects. He would send me to the garage to get this tool or that tool, and the garage was so messy that I’d be gone for 20 minutes and he’d have to help look for the tool. At some point I suggested that we lay out the tools ahead of time, he didn’t listen.

Admit it everyone. We ALL have a junk drawer, where we shove stuff we may “need later”. Some of us even have more than one junk drawer.

Ah, finally an Arlo and Janis strip I can relate to.

Ah yes, oh well…oh hum…I’ll take a nap.

Still have to get it if you need it….

I just now sat here counting my “junk” drawers. 1 in the dining room, 2 in the living room, 3 in the bedroom, 2 in the bathroom, a “walk-in” junk drawer in the bedroom(my walk-in closet), and 6 in the kitchen… They are not all actual drawers, but if there’s junk in ’em, I count ’em. ☺

Kitchen wisdom!

Going through my junk drawer the other day, I found the neatest, greatest little “thing” I must have had for 30 years. I still haven’t found a use for it, but I know that as soon as I dump it, I’ll need it. Unfortunately, I have several dozen of those little “things”.

“If it doesn’t bring you joy, get rid of it,” I always say, but apparently that rule can’t be applied to my mother-in-law.

Time to take that “crap” out and organize and decide what you will need. The rest goes in some other draw.

The problem is KNOWING that you have it, and not being able to find it.

reminds me of a clear-out of inherited junk at work, when asked what would I do when I needed something I was just throwing out, my response was I’d just order a new one which would likely be cheaper than spending a hour searching through a cabinet which might have one

When I went to carpentry school, my instructor said that carpenters spend up to 50% of their time looking for tools.

If you can’t find it you don’t have it.

When I did my kitchen reno I put all the tools I never used into one “junk drawer” Ten years later the junk drawer is the only one that’s still uncluttered!

Who doesn’t enjoy a good treasure hunt??

I have gotten rid of a lot of kitchen things neither of us has used in decades. Plus we had mice in the kitchen about 5 years ago and never got around to cleaning the items in a small cabinet just above floor level as we never used them and I wanted him to replace the drawers over it first so anything in/on the drawers would fall down before I cleaned the area. Have not needed anything from the cabinet since and there was not much in it.

Now that we are cooking almost all meals we keep coming up short on kitchen items – okay, some of them like the plastic pie containers/covers were in the long broken dishwasher (for storage), but so many things missing. We just bought husband a new cheese grater as he does not like the one I use – his old one is in that cabinet.

During this month’s supermarket shopping trip he bought refrigerated dough corn muffins. I pulled the can out the other day to read the baking instructions. We need muffin/cupcake tins. I know we had – I even still papers to go in them – but cannot find any. We have to buy a new one just to make these ##@@! muffins, which I know will disappoint him anyway when he has them.

My wife has her own ‘kitchen tool’ drawer, as do I. I know where my tools are!