Sorry laundry pile, the junk drawer was cluttered

I started playing about with creative writing, short stories and poetry while on holiday in Tenerife this summer. Here's the first piece I wanted to share.

Three loads of laundry tower next to my chest of drawers, slumped against the radiator.

I stare at the pile and glance towards the door, wondering how long I have left before my partner comments on it.

By this point, I know it’s only a matter of time.

I sigh, place both hands above my knees and stand up from the bed. But you can’t sort laundry without a cup of tea, can you?

So I walk downstairs and beeline for the kettle.

The lid comes off with its familiar pop.

Ah. Limescale.

To be fair we are overdue to descale the kettle.

So down I lean to open the cupboard under the sink, but we are out of descaler. Drat.

I turn towards the junk drawer – you never know what you’ll find in the junk drawer – and slide it open, breath held in my chest.

Still no descaler.

But what a mess.

Even for a junk drawer, this is chaos.

Cat food, bulldog clips, sandwich ties, a tape measure, freezer bags.

Individually useful, collectively anxiety-inducing.

So I empty the drawer and refill it, placing the cat food squarely in the front left corner, gathering bulldog clips and sandwich ties into their own separate freezer bags – the remainder of which I roll up – and I place the tape measure in the opposite corner from the cat food.

Much better.

My relief evaporates when I remember the laundry, lack of descaler and absent cup of tea missing from my hand. My brow furrows.

Maybe I need a list?

Two tasks barely warrant a list, but if I add ‘Tidy the junk drawer’ ex-post-facto, well that justifies drawing a tiny imperfect box and giving it a satisfying tick.

Might as well write a list then.

Back upstairs I go to find my list-writing notebook.

It’s smaller than my journal but bigger than my gym pad, perhaps the size of two decks of playing cards next to each other. Maybe two and a half.

There’s a black biro clipped into the spiral binding. I remove the pen before flipping to the first blank page to note the date and start my neatly bulleted list.

I sit down on the edge of the bed, laundry towering and slumping between my chest of drawers and radiator to my left.

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