If Drawers Could Talk

So. We have a row (is that the right word??) of four drawers in our kitchen, and for about two weeks, the drawer on the bottom has not been shutting all the way. It's been driving me a little bit nuts, but not nuts enough to actually do something about it until Saturday night. As I was cleaning up after dinner, I decided to go ahead and pull the drawer all the way out and see what was behind it that was preventing it from closing (perhaps the pancake flipper that I couldn't find that morning?). You see, that's just the kind of excitement that a married couple of ten years with two young children has in our neck of the woods on a Saturday night. In addition to my pancake flipper, here is the rest of what was lurking back there (none of which actually belonging to us).

• six recipe cards
• two coupons for GM cereals with NO expiration date!
• three appliance manuals - one for a popcorn popper, one for a microwave, and one for the quintessential kitchen appliance: the shopvac
• two prescription receipts from 1997
• one pack of price sticker labels
• two postcards - one from Australia and one from New Zealand - both dated 1997
• one 1978 stock card for our cabinets
• one photo taken in our dining room (different wallpaper from what was up when we moved in)
• one clothespin
• one Publisher's Clearinghouse envelope from 1995 all ready to be mailed in - R.I.P. Ed McMahon!
• a broken ruler
• three ziplock bags and a napkin
• a packet of Puffs tissues
• a housekeeper business card (I might have an idea of where she did not clean)
• an unopened oven thermometer
• an "IQ" test (you know - the pictogram kind like "read between the lines")
• three grocery lists
• a wallpaper sample from the kitchen - this is what was up when we moved in but is no longer

I guess when your house is thirty plus years old, you tend to find these kind of things. Kind of like that strip of turquoise and shiny silver wallpaper that was lurking behind the master bedroom toilet. It does make me wonder about the people who lived here before us and what else they left behind that is hiding out in our house.