Junk drawer

Do you have a junk drawer? Doesn't everyone? The answer is: No. I used to have a junk drawer, now it seems most of my drawers are junk drawers -- I'm talking about that boxy thing that fits in a cabinet and has a knob on it to pull on so you can see what is inside the drawer -- not drawers, like pants.

Anyway, we had a junk drawer in our kitchen. Mind you the kitchen had a grand total of 4 drawers. One was rather large which held mom's cooking utensils like her whisk, her bread knife, the knife sharpener -- things like that. One contained the stainless steel flatware, just enough service for six people. In order to eat the next meal we had to wash the dishes/flatware. And one held mom's dishtowels and pot-holders. The other drawer, a nice-sized drawer, was THE JUNK DRAWER.

Now, what do you think that junk drawer contained? I used to love to rummage through it. Let's see what I remember. Remember, I'm elderly and my remembering skills aren't what they used to be.

It contained -- drum roll please --

dad's hammer -- large, heavy, never used

dad's screw driver -- standard head, never used

string -- used occasionally when mom needed to truss a turkey or wrap a box for the post office

miscellaneous nails and tacks -- used more often than the hammer and screw driver

green stamps -- trading stamps used to get gifts -- you needed about a million stamps to get a potholder, but mom collected them anyway. The A&P gave them to you when you bought food. You got one stamp for every 10 cents you spent (today it would be one stamp for every dollar, but things were must less expensive back then). These stamps floated around the drawer, got bent, and every once in a while, mom would get them all out and we would wet a sponge and paste them into the book(s) and hope we had enough for that pot-holder she was collecting for. Actually, I'm not sure about the pot-holder, but I don't remember what she actually got with her stamps. Does anyone?

Every so often mom would clear out the junk drawer and find small toys, puzzle pieces, game parts, etc. But mostly when we didn't know what do to with an item, we threw it into the junk drawer. And, if we couldn't find an item, we'd look in the junk drawer, rarely finding what we were looking for at that time.

I guess times really haven't changed that much, have they?