Decisions. Decisions.

I don’t need to read all those best-selling books about the joys of throwing stuff out. I’m skilled at that. More than one item has been given a last minute reprieve from the jaws of dumpster. I’ve watched my husband weep as I harshly sort his clothes into stay-or-go piles.

I like empty drawers. I open them and admire their emptiness, their zen-ness.  I’ve been accused of running a motel with no customers.

I don’t store stuff under beds. That space is reserved for dust bunnies and scared cats.

But…and this is a big but…yesterday I went to my really nice closet that holds miscellaneous stuff.  As I was organizing my ribbons, I saw IT.

IT was a tiny box. It wasn’t labeled but it was, nevertheless, a box of “string too short to use.”

Over the years, I’ve heard friends talk about cleaning out their parent’s houses and finding boxes marked with those very words. We’d be horrified and would vow never to do anything like that. We’d laugh and say: “ What were they thinking?  Surely this is the stuff of myth.  We would never do that to our children!”

Well, it’s NOT. Myth, that is. It happened. To me. Those little bits and pieces of ribbon found their way into their very own box in my special closet.

My wise and somewhat frugal mother-in-law had a box in her kitchen pantry. It was marked “Light Bulbs….New in front, Old in rear.” I was confused and a bit worried about that until one day, when I was alone in her house, I decided to take a peek.

Turns out, there was a simple answer. The “old” light bulbs were three-way bulbs. Each  had one element that had burned out. But they didn’t need to be pitched. They still had life and value. Just not as much as they started with.

Simple. Frugal. Wise.

I’m not going that far but I’m not about to toss out those little pieces of ribbons. They, too, still have life and value. They’re just not as long as they used to be.

And the children will just have to deal with it when the time comes.