I wasn’t serious. Really
Sunday afternoon had movie snow, thick and soft. Not as cold as Saturday, which wasn’t as cold as Friday – from –22 to 22 in 24 hours is nice work in these parts. The temp goes up 40 degrees and you still can’t feel your feet. Other people’s, perhaps, but it would impolite to try.
A fine weekend. Interacted with mate and offspring, absorbed prepackaged mass-culture entertainment, converted many pieces of paper to digital versions, consumed distilled, aged fluids, and other satisfying diversions. I’m at low ebb now, though, and have little of note to say. That’s the bad part about working all weekend: getting back to work.
I was kidding in the previous post when I asked if I should blog, tweet, or Facebook the act of cleaning a drawer. It was a joke. The more you get involved in these twitch-of-the-moment blurt-enabling platforms, and the more you enjoy them, the more you start to process everything as fodder. I never had that problem when this was a once-a-day thing, but now it’s all one long smear – the difference between the Bellagio once-an-hour fountain and a garden hose left running all day. (And yes, to the commenter who told me to “get over myself,” I am comparing myself to the spectacular Vegas fountain. I am that impressive.) While cleaning the drawer I thought “this is the sort of thing about which bad tweets are made,” because I’ve read them. That’s fine; don’t care. But if you’re going to tweet, there ought to be a little kick that rewards people who care to read. Example:
Dull tweet: The plane just landed
Good tweet: The plane just landed in the hudson
As for saying “I’m cleaning out my drawers,” I cannot imagine putting that fact on Facebook. I can’t imagine putting any fact on Facebook, for that matter, except “here I am on Facebook,” which seems sufficient for now. As for being a blog post, well, the standards change: you can go long, if you can make something of it. If you can’t, so what?
I did set myself up for failure: experience has taught me that the subject of cleaning drawers is pitifully dull. Did a column at the Strib many years ago asking people what they had in their junk drawers, and Lord: they told me. Long, detailed lists. Interesting if you’re a 31st century archeologist, but otherwise, no. These weren’t junk drawers, though. Those are in the kitchen. There are four drawers in the hallway built-in, plus the secret drawer behind the wall about the size of a premie incubator, and perhaps built for that very purpose. It’s original equipment from the 1915 construction, and the drawers have held up quite well; can’t imagine an IKEA product still performing as intended after 94 years of daily use. Maybe a spoon.
One drawer is given over to linens; two are devoted to sundries and tools, flashlights, small cans of household oil, batteries, that sort of thing – one is neatly arranged, and the other, like an evil twin, defies all attempts to organize it. I think it is connected to an alternate universe; when someone pushes out an item it ends up in my drawer. Slam the drawer too hard, and an item goes into the alternate place. Two years later, it returns when someone on the other side does the same thing. I mean, there’s Brasso in my drawers. (English readers are probably thinking “well, I should hope so.”) I bought it to take the scratches off an iPod. It stinks. I cannot get rid of it, because the moment I do, my wife will need Brasso, even though her previous Brasso needs = zero. But spouses are like the IRS: toss out a receipt, and it’s the one you’ll need when you’re audited.
The main drawer is a testament to my anal-retentive nature that occasionally intersects with the manic phase organizational skills, and has three plastic bins, each with its own purpose. Cold medications; Basic Unguents and bandages; Pain and Digestion. I take great pleasure in opening the drawer and seeing, at a glance, that we are ready. Anyone pulls a muscle while throwing up, I’m ready; if you sneeze hard enough to bang your forehead against the edge of a table, I’m ready; burns, insect bites, ticks, flu, acid throat, Seaman’s Drip, Butcher’s Dropsy, weeping scabbies, fludgetz, hasty liver, piles, heaps, mounds – I’m ready.
Suffice to say I don’t use any of it. Sometimes you get annoyed at the people you live with: would it be that difficult to get a minor burn, so I could use this cream before it goes bad?
We have all been taught the dangers of expired medication. They all go bad. Not in the LeCarre sense where they come to see sickness and health as two sides of a meaningless game, a mannered gavotte, but Quisling bad. They go over to the other side. The pain cream accentuates the aches; the aspirin steps up the tempo of the headache like the man who beats the drums in a ship driven by slave’s oars; Pepto swings its loyalties and becomes a guaranteed sluice-loosener.
It’s a testament to our rude & ruddy health that nearly everything in the bin was expired. I threw it out. Went to Walgreens. Bought some more.
I did allow myself one tweet on the matter: noted that shopping at Walgreens’ eventually makes you feel 78 years old, especially if you’re looking for something that Promotes Joint Health. Doesn’t say it gives it, just that it promotes it, as if the pills send out direct mail circulars on your elbow’s behalf. I screwed up my elbow doing push-ups, and it hurts when I lift anything heavier than a Saturday newspaper, so I wanted some Glucosamine Chodratinatine, or whatever it is the hucksters hawk on the radio.
The store was full of old people, and it seemed like a place where you went to get placebos you could throw at the Reaper. Annie Lennox sang a slow sad torch song from the speakers above. You had to wonder what the old ladies pushing their carts thought of the song. Whether you completely forget the pangs of passion or just push them aside, because frankly your roomytism is giving you worse trouble right now than any damn fool boy ever did.
Brought the bags home, filed the medicines and salves in the drawer. Asked the family if they felt feverish, or bleedy, or loose in the hinder-parts, or had hideously scratched iPods. Nope. Everyone felt great.
Ungrateful, the lot of them. I don’t know why I bother.
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Ha! So you did choose to blog about it!!!!
Good piece of writing, though basically about nothing. Hey, it’s your blog. If people want every entry to be about world-shaking issues, there are plenty of those blogs elsewhere.
But I don’t get the Brasso/British readers reference. Sounds like “Brasso in my drawers” would be an allusion to the old wedding tackle, but I can’t find any trace of Brasso as British slang.
When I see “Brasso” I think of the Harvard Lampoon Parody “Bored of the Rings”. My sister named her two cats Drano and Brasso after reading it.
Excerpt:
“This book is predominantly concerned with making money, and from its pages a reader may learn much about the character and the literary integrity of the authors. Of boggies, however, he will discover next to nothing, since anyone in the possession of a mere moiety of his marbles will readily concede that such creatures could exist only in the minds of children of the sort whose childhoods are spent in wicker baskets, and who grow up to be muggers, dog thieves, and insurance salesmen.”
“Boggies are an ‘unattractive but annoying people’ who don’t like machines more complicated than a garotte or a blackjack, and avoid the Big Folk except when they can assemble in a hundred or so against a lone farmer or hunter. Dwarves refer to them as ‘the boggie peril’. They wear shiny grey suits with narrow lapels, alpine hats, and string ties.”
“Under the Naugahyde brothers Brasso and Drano the boggies settled in the Sty, where they organized a government that would have been considered unusually crude for a colony of cherrystone clams. Little happened until Mr Dildo Bugger went on an expedition with some dwarves and Goodgulf the wizard, and took the ring from Goddam. Our story begins years later. ”
“At the giant pig-out that Dildo throws (“It takes a heap o’ vittles to gag a boggie”), he and Frito learn that the Nine Nozdrul are abroad, and Sorhed has re-arisen. The other two volunteer Frito to go and throw it away in the Zazu Pits, with his idiot servant Spam, plus the expendable twins Moxie and Pepsi.”
And on like that. We thought it was a scream at the time (drugs may have been involved)
If my wife read this post, she would nod her head in total agreement. Of course, you must be ready. You never know what might happen. And yes, the rest of us in the family are ungrateful.
Dang! ScottG beat me to it.
Oh well. On a positive note, thanks for getting me to check out Shorpy, Mr. Lileks.
Wow, I thought I was the only one who ever read Bored of the Rings. Thanks to hpoulter for scratching that scab. Now I’m going to have to try to find a copy.
Also, The Paperback Conspiracy. But that’s another story.
Don’t rely on the ingrates living among you. I know you’re at low ebb, but I’ve a plan that will relieve both problems:
1) Strip to your boxer briefs & socks.
2) Go out & completely rebuild the Oak Island Water Feature in its current-iced over condition with your bare hands, employing no tools. The hard work & brisk weather will immediately chase away your Black Dog, much as the Kolyma Gold Fields did for the kulak class.
3) Soon your hands and perhaps other body parts will be covered with parched, cracked, nicked, scraped, scratched, gouged, punctured and most importantly BLEEDING wounds and, if you’re truly lucky, some patches of frost bite.
4) Repair directly to the newly arranged & restocked drawer and treat your bleeding wounds and frost bite, as necessary and appropriate under current medical standards.
5) Wait 24 hours for the FEVER to set in. When it does, repair again to the drawer to begin immediately treating such fever, again as necessary and appropriate under current medical standards.
6) Ignore the old saw about “Feeding the Cold, Starving the Fever” and promptly prepare a quantity of undercooked chicken, preferably a whole bird stuffed with runny mozzarella fresca & expired Danish ham. Eat heartily despite your fever.
7) The HINDER PARTS should become overactive in short order. Repair to the drawer to begin immediately treating said hinder parts, again as necessary and appropriate under current medical standards.
9) Then given her talents, ask (G)Nat to drive you to the hospital, because you “don’t like the look in mommie’s eyes right now.”
I smell the the beginning of a new book here. As Gallery and Gastro were to foods, is there perhaps a medicine chest gallery for the writing? Much fodder in the early 20th Century alone!
As an English reader I can inform hpoutler that “Brasso in your drawers” is not slang for the old meat-and-two-veg but it bloody well ought to be and I will make a point of trying to introduce it into the national argot as such.
Of course, all Englishmen have a drawer containing a tin of Brasso, a jar of Marmite, a copy of The Inimitable Jeeves and a cricket ball. We don’t actually know what any of these things are for but we go and look at them when we become distressed by any creeping Americanisation of our culture. They provide solace.
I went to a Walgreens in Florida last year. Boy you guys have a lot of drugs to choose from.
So, are we going to get the much-beloved 24 update this season? Watching Jack Bauer shoot someone in the kneecaps is no fun without Lileks commentary to look forward to!
Walgreen’s: you can be the only customer in the store and still have to wait in line at the register.
“(And yes, to the commenter who told me to “get over myself,” I am comparing myself to the spectacular Vegas fountain. I am that impressive.)”
Heck, I’ll agree. You are more impressive than the fountains. And I’ll grant you this was funnier than expected!
What about furuncles? So many fall into the trap of discounting the furuncle.
So, no loose, crusty rubber bands, monopoly pieces or keys to locks you don’t have anymore? Dang. Well… kudos to your organizational skills. That is certainly something I do not possess.
“…can’t imagine an IKEA product still performing as intended after 94 years of daily use.”
To which IKEA masterminds would say, “Exactly.”
They strive for transience. They think it’s nuts that we hold onto old furniture like loved ones. They only want their furniture to last long enough to be useful. If that makes any sense at all.
Which of course is antithetic to this site’s past preservation mission.
Keep up the good work! Been reading since ‘98 and still tuning in daily.
The difference with you, James, is that if you tweet your organizational skills in 140 words people will be laughing for five minutes. So Tweet, Facebook or blog, you’re damn funny!
I have done the “Gallery of Regrettable Food” thing with med ads all the time. I usually start each blog post with one of them (or something medically funny). Folks used to be so obsessed with bowels it is ridiculous. Or meds for the “nervous woman”.
The reason I started a blog was I figured if you could make a “Target run” funny, I could write about mundane nursing stuff and (hopefully) it would be interesting.
Oh, so you are a Great-blog father, btw. Here’s the tree: I blog because of you (and Hugh), “Nurse Ratched’s Place” started because of me and someone started blogging because of HER.
See what you started? : D
PS Forget the Bellagio – did you know they took down the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton? : (
The last time I was in Walgreens – 2 days ago – the song on the speakers was some godawful 70’s tune. Something about “when your body’s had enough of me, and I’m laying flat on the floor…when your body’s had enough of me, I’m gonna love you a little bit more….”. The store was full of ancient people, the male singer (I use that term loosely) had a high voice that made him sound like he was whining – the whole effect was absolutely nauseating. I couldn’t help but wonder what others thought about that icky, icky “song”……
I know how to get scratches out of plastic. I used to make those plexiglas boxes for displays. Plexi always scratches. I use tooth powder. Colgate makes it, I still have some. Just damp a paper towel or cloth put a bit of tooth powder on it and buff out the scratch(es). It works great on watches too. If worse comes to worse, I suppose toothpaste might work (I guess they all have a mild abrasive), but I know tooth powder really works. And it smells a lot better than Brasso, which might cause problems due to the solvent in it. Try it.
I always liked Penny Arcade’s take on Twitter.
“03:34:29 ok, poop time!”
“03:35:08 ok, poop is coming out”
Kim, you must not do much geriatric nursing… it has been my experience in caring for older folks that at some point it becomes all about the bowels. Seriously. Poop, or the lack thereof, becomes the hands down favorite topic of conversation somewhere around the mid-80’s.
Oops, that was supposed to be posted by me, Betsy, TO Kim. And don’t you just love how a blog post about cleaning out a drawer devolves into a conversation about poop? God bless the interwebs…
1. We have Brasso. Came with the house, which came with brass fixtures, which we are gradually replacing (about 1/3 are gone) and which I have never polished.
2. My first thought: is the first aid drawer in a child’s reach? (I have lots of young’ns around.)
3. We have a 2-year-old with a fever and have already used up the Jr. Ibuprofen and are on to the less-preferred Jr. Aceteminophen. So *we’d* be grateful for your well-stocked drawer.
4. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me that I love reading about drawer clean-outs, but we’ll say it’s due to your writing rather than any inherent intrigue in the subject matter.
Thank God you were kidding, James – I thought you’d slipped your cable.
I’m printing this out so I can follow it to the letter while outside, dying.
Owwww. Ow. Ow. Ow.
James, for some of your readers, Brasso will always make us think of boot camp. Always. (“Shine, yew maggots, shine like yer mother’s back teeth — what have they sent me to train, O Lord? Sine, shine, SHINE!!!!”)
Brasso cans make me faintly nervous. Sorry.
(Oooh-rah! Semper Fi, do or die, drop and give me twenty.)
Sir.
I pulled a muscle throwing up once…
I strongly suspect that you’re making up the bit about going to Walgreens to buy first aid supplies. Everyone knows that your medicine drawer is really stocked by a mysterious fellow who comes in the middle of the night, and who always knows what is seasonally appropriate.
“Let’s see what’s in the dented Johnson & Johnson box this time… huh, Doan’s Pills.”
Dude, you just blogged cleaning a drawer.
And, you got me to read it, you bastard.
So today’s column (actually yesterday’s – I’m a day behind) is basically one long tweet about something you wouldn’t normally tweet about.
But where would you store Advanced Unguents? Prescription-only Unguents?