BOXED IN . . .

I, like most, have some weird hang-ups. Maybe not hang-ups, per se, but ... quirks. Weirdnesses. Odd behaviors and phobias. The strangest and most inexplicable of these things that I know in myself is, I think, this: I can't throw away boxes.

When I first moved to my own place over a year and a half ago, I bought an iron. I took the instruction booklet out and filed it in my Instruction Booklets file folder. I took all the protective wrapping off of the iron. I threw all the protective wrapping away. I used the iron. I store the iron in my closet, next to the mini-ironing board.

I still have the box the iron came in.

I don't really know why. Do I think I'll need the box for something? Maybe I can use it to pack things I'm going to mail later on, to somebody, sometime, somewhere. What if I move again -- I hate the thought of the iron just sitting loosely in some U-Haul cardboard box, along with other sundry items that have no proper home. Isn't it better to have put the iron back in its original box, so that I know exactly what it is, where it is, and so that it is easy to carry?

That's ridiculous, I know. As I take stock right now, I realize exactly what it is that I'm holding onto so unnecessarily. The box for my printer. Don't need it. The box that my spice rack came in. Don't need it. The boxes that once held my VCR and DVD players. Don't need them. The box that was the former home of my iPod. Don't need it. Shouldn't be keeping it. Can't get rid of it.

There is progress, though. At the start of autumn, I got rid of all of my commercial shoe boxes, and re-stored my shoes in the neatest little plastic shoe containers from, natch, The Container Store. And so my hall closet is so nice and clean and cardboard box-less.

If only I could say the same about my storage closet.