The Office of Shame

If you were to visit my house, you probably would have no idea that we have a clutter problem. Sure, there's a bit of stuff stored in the basement, but what are basements for? And it's not like you're going to dig through my closets or anything.

But if you happened to go down to the bathroom, you might notice The Door.



Since A and I moved into this house, no one but us has seen what is behind The Door. "Oh, that's the office, it's a little messy right now."

Hah. Let's see what's inside:


Not too bad, right?

Wrong.


If you look closely, you can see a coffee table under there.


That keyboard has not been played in nearly two years, because that's the last time I was able to get to it. It was lost after A went through a fit of "organizing," which really meant just pulling all of his stuff out of the boxes that had been stacked in the corner, and then leaving the boxes and the stuff all over the floor.

This corner actually isn't too bad. A year ago I decided to clean out the office, got the desk organized, and then lost motivation. A little clutter managed to accumulate before more stuff was piled just inside the door and we no longer could easily get to the desk, thereby discouraging anyone from actually using it.

At least two years worth of paperwork, possibly closer to three. It all gets piled just inside the door here because it's too much of a pain to get into the filing cabinet under the window seat due to all the junk in the way. Don't be fooled by what you see here. There are two more stacks blocked from view by the box, and the top of the cabinet on the left is covered with two more stacks.

Day One

Day One gives a pretty good sampling of the different clutter problems going on in this room.


First, we have the Outright Garbage That Was Never Thrown Away. I will take probable blame for the gift card holder from Expo Design Center (upper right) that I found on the coffee table but the rest is all A -- leftover packaging from a set of headphones, the shopping bag from the iPod he got me for my birthday two years ago, and random garbage from a photo frame from god knows when.


Here we have some But I May Use It Again" -- the bubbles for goody bags for E's first birthday. The whole box was something like $3, and the bottles were a pain to open. Is this really worth saving in case I want to use them for another set of goody bags a year or more in the future? And then there's the Forgotten Stuff -- the Next Day Blinds folder, full of information we gathered when we went to their showroom two years ago to get ideas. We did the blinds project six months later without even looking at the folder again because their products had changed, and the folder has lain forgotten on the table ever since.


"Where's Spot?" falls into the Forgotten Stuff category as well. E had ripped off one of the flaps, and I stuck it in the office to dry after gluing it back on. That was at least six months ago. The other two items are Sentimental Things That No One Actually Cares About. Someone gave A the joke daddy diaper changing kit after my baby shower. I doubt he even remembers it was down there, and I didn't ask him before I threw it out. If he someday asks what happened to it, I'm playing dumb. The slinky was a themed toy my old firm gave out after it was announced that we were merging with a larger law firm. It was a neat concept, but the new firm sucked and I quit after six weeks, so I really don't want to hold onto mementos of that event. Plus, there's at least one more of those slinkies somewhere in the office.


And then there are The Boxes. You may have noticed a few of these for various items in the pictures above. A refuses to throw out boxes for anything, because he swears it might be valuable later if it needs to be repaired or returned or resold. So I didn't throw this box out. I recycled it.

Again, if he ever asks, I'm playing dumb.

After Day One, I actually spent a few days doing random stuff in other parts of the house, because I was too depressed by how little difference I saw after one day. But eventually I came back.

Day Two

Lots of random stuff found on day two:


First, a product box I'm actually keeping (but found a home for other than the floor). My netbook has gone back in for service twice since we bought it back in December. It still has eight months left on the warranty and, if it keeps pace, will need to go back about four more times, so it makes sense to keep it. But the Target box next to it that has been used to ship the netbook back and forth to the manufacturer is going, because it's falling apart. If I have to buy a new shipping box later, so be it. Also going are a bunch of shoe boxes (I have no clue why these were in the office in the first place) and extra holiday cards from last year, including three partially addressed envelopes for people whose new addresses I didn't have. Because really, it's April. Those cards are never getting sent. And two package of thank you notes were put away. Thank you notes are whole other topic unto themselves. I'll save that exciting discussion for another day.


The rest of Day Two: extra outlet plugs that can be stored in the basement with the rest of the extra babyproofing stuff; the case for a set of headphones that went missing ages ago; a paddleball set I got as a thank you for donating blood (my first impulse was to store it in E's closet for when he's big enough to have fun with it, but really that's years away, I need to let it go), extra envelopes from E's birth announcements (sent 15 months ago), and Christmas wrapping paper that was on the floor behind the table. Really? We couldn't be bothered putting away the wrapping paper when we were done? The wrapping paper drawer is 18" from where we left it. Usually this is something that would probably be A's fault, but I don't think he did any of the Christmas wrapping this past year. I probably looked around the rest of the room, realized leaving five rolls of wrapping paper out would make no measurable difference, and left it there.


After Day Two I'd gained a whole extra foot you could step inside the door, so I've got that going for me.