I am a collector. A collector of paper and other odds-and-ends. Just like a squirrel collects its nuts and stores them in various trees, I collect and store all my junk in various places throughout the house. Though most of it is concentrated in one particular spot in the house. My junk drawer.

In this drawer I have successfully packed thousands of papers and stuff I don’t need into a single drawer. This drawer is located in an antique looking desk my mom bought a while ago. Personally, I never cared too much for the desk. The desk is long, unfinished, and it only has three drawers. But my mother fell in love with it. So instead of getting one of those sleek looking desks you see at Office Max, she decided to buy the one you would see in the Queen of England’s house. My mother claimed it was a “conversation piece and would add elegance too our living room.” In a way it is kind of elegant. It has the Renaissance old world look to it. Its unfinished wood so its not exactly shiny. It also has a nice smell of a tree doused in perfume. It’s actually made from pine. Pine is a soft wood. This gives the desk it’s smoothness and light color.

From this elegant desk, my mother has assigned me one drawer to keep for myself. It is the drawer to the far left on the very end. In it, papers are busting out the sides and corners of the drawer. In fact the drawer has busted open four times already. Four times I had to get a hammer and nail back the drawer together. Four times I got paper cuts stuffing all the papers back inside my drawer. Four times I’ve had to listen to my mother harangue me about being more organized and learn to let go of things and throw them out. Throwing things out doesn’t come that easy for the junk collector. I collect and stuff. Most of the items in my drawer are old school papers, and poems I have written in the past. There’s also old PSAT scores, an old tattered notebook, a drivers manual I’ve barely cracked open, clear thumbtacks, pencils I never use, a DS charger, a small toy dog I used to play with, an old photo CD, construction paper, ugly stationary, a blue ruler, a dusty harmonica, a hair catalog, an old pink highlighter, various pens that ran out of ink, an old Orchestra badge, and some really old stale tic-tacs. Though what may seem to the untrained non junk collector’s eye a heap of trash and garbage, most of the things in my drawer do have a purpose of why I have saved it. I’ve saved my PSAT scores because I want to compare them with this years scores. I’ve saved my old writings and poems because I like to look at what I’ve written over the past years. Now as of some of the other things I have in my drawer such as the really old tic tacs, a little toy dog I don’t play with, and the pens with no ink, I do not really have a purpose of why I keep them other than I’m too lazy to throw them out.

They say that you can tell a lot from a person by the shoes they wear. If that is the case, you can learn a whole lot more when looking in some ones junk drawer. Especially in mine. My drawer is literally packed to its breaking point of things I have collected over the years. In my life I have collected many memories in my mind. I find sentimentality in simple things I’ve found or created. Whether its an old story I made or its an old toy or harmonica I used to play with, I can make some sort of sentimental attachment with it. At the same time I admit that I’m a bit of a pack rat. My drawer is packed. But I am a junk collector. Junk is what I collect. Plus, I’m pretty interested to see how much more stuff I cant fit in my drawer. I’ll clean it out. Eventually.