裝廢品的抽屜

Where did the 1)flyswatter hang in the kitchen of the house you grew up in? Which closet kept the used Christmas wrapping paper? Where did the stacks of old National Geographic magazines collect dust? Every home has roots， warmth， 2)anchors， laughter， tears， a place to hang a flyswatter and a junk drawer. I’m sure archaeologists have discovered junk drawers in caves.

The junk drawer. It’s a 3)yard sale in a drawer. The junk drawer is a place where things 4)slink off to hide from us. A place for things that have moved well 5)off the beaten path. It’s like an attic. We tend to forget what’s in the attic. It’s always a surprise—pleasant or unpleasant—when we once again see what inhabits the attic.

The junk drawer is like a museum without a 6)curator—a museum without a 7)custodian.

As a boy， I knew that while some houses had a number of junk drawers， every house had at least one junk drawer. The junk drawer was like an old friend. It had a personality. It had its good points and its bad points. It had its strengths and its weaknesses.

You could take a photo of the contents of your family’s junk drawer， give it to Sherlock Holmes and the famous 8)sleuth would be able to tell just about everything worth knowing about you and your family. The junk drawer was a 9)nook. It was a cranny. It was perfectly suited to do what it did.

The junk drawer kept things that we probably didn’t need to keep. A junk drawer is like a mind. We can remember the room number of our 7th grade study hall， but forget our 10)PIN for the ATM or our cell phone number. The junk drawer harbors things of no use or value. We need to 11)rummage through our brain occasionally， just as we rummage through a junk drawer.

What did you keep in your junk drawer? Probably a lot of the same stuff we kept in ours. First there was always tape—12)duct，13)masking， 14)Scotch and 15)Band-Aids. Ernest Hemingway wrote， “Life breaks everyone， but the tough become strong in the broken places.” The junk drawer tape helped make broken places strong.

What were all of those keys for? No one knows that many doors.

Rubber bands， 16)twist ties， ink pens that dried up years ago， dead flashlight batteries， an earring that had lost its mate， 17)feral 18)screwdrivers， escaped screws and nails， expired 19)coupons， a sticky coin or two， unidentifiable bits of plastic， candles， a hammer without a handle， a bottle cap or two， 20)clothespins， broken crayons， a piece of chalk， buttons， a couple of 21)safety pins， seeds in a package that says they should be planted by 1988， an unsigned birthday card from back when 22)Eisenhower was the president and lots of loose string. 23)Flotsam and jetsam.

They are things that once brought us happiness that found their way into a drawer that we didn’t know we’d left open. Things that were once useful and wanted wait to be useful and wanted once again. They end up in the junk drawer because they don’t really fit anywhere else.

Bits of our lives that have been tossed aside. Lost treasures and broken items. Things just a little too good to throw away. Each tells a story. Each was something we needed. Something that we had to have. Something that we’re not so sure we still need. Some of the stuff ended up in its present location because the drawer was closer than the waste basket.

A junk drawer is a junk pile that stays within limits due to the size of the drawer. It’s life in small doses. 24)Adlai Stevenson said that many things are revealed to the humble that are hidden from the great. A junk drawer is a humble place.

Our current junk drawer has been opened thousands of times. It has been shaved and soaped， but it still 25)squeaks. It’s a drawer full of hopes， dreams and memories. It may be a drawer filled with junk rather than money， but it’s a drawer that remains optimistic. It’s proof that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living.

“We really need to clean that junk drawer this weekend.”

Why do we call it a junk drawer? It’s not junk.

The junk drawer. It has everything I’ll never need.

伴你成長的房子里，那蒼蠅拍掛在廚房的哪個(gè)地方?哪個(gè)壁櫥里保存著用過的圣誕禮物包裝紙?那一疊疊《國家地理》雜志過刊又放在哪里積塵?每個(gè)家庭都有根、溫暖、支柱、歡笑、淚水、一個(gè)用來掛蒼蠅拍的地方，還有一個(gè)裝廢品的抽屜。我敢肯定，考古學(xué)家在洞穴里發(fā)現(xiàn)過裝廢品的抽屜。

裝廢品的抽屜。那是一場在抽屜里上演的“大甩賣”。裝廢品的抽屜是那些從我們身邊潛逃并躲藏起來的東西的棲身地，那些遠(yuǎn)離慣常軌跡的東西也聚首于此。它就像一個(gè)閣樓。我們往往會(huì)忘記閣樓里放著什么。當(dāng)我們又一次看見住在閣樓里的東西時(shí)，總覺詫異—— 或“驚”或“喜”。

裝廢品的抽屜就像一個(gè)沒有館長的博物館—— 一個(gè)沒有看門人的博物館。

還是個(gè)男孩的時(shí)候，我就知道盡管一些房子里有好幾個(gè)裝廢品的抽屜，但每間房子里至少有一個(gè)裝廢品的抽屜。裝廢品的抽屜就像一個(gè)老朋友。它有種個(gè)性。它有優(yōu)點(diǎn)也有缺點(diǎn)，有強(qiáng)處也有弱處。

你可以給你家裝廢品的抽屜里的那些東西拍張照，把照片拿給夏洛 克·福爾摩斯看，這位名偵探定能把關(guān)于你和你家人的所有值得了解的信息一一道破。裝廢品的抽屜是個(gè)隱蔽處，是個(gè)縫隙。用來裝廢雜物最適合不過了。

裝廢品的抽屜保存著我們可能不需要保存的東西。一個(gè)裝廢品的抽屜就像一個(gè)人的大腦。我們能記起我們上七年級(jí)時(shí)自修室的門牌號(hào)，但卻在自動(dòng)柜員機(jī)提款時(shí)忘了我們的個(gè)人識(shí)別碼或是手機(jī)號(hào)碼。……