A WALK IN THE PARK: Taking an organizational lesson from my daughter

There are many great things about having grown daughters. One thing is that they are kind enough to bring to my attention things that I might have otherwise overlooked.

Megan, my youngest, dropped a few hints recently that my kitchen could use a little work over. This started a few weeks ago when we were shopping together in Fayetteville. She pulled into a store parking lot and, out of the blue, suggested that we go pick out new silverware. She wanted me to have a matching set, she said, and get rid of the assortment of mismatched eating utensils that I have collected all these years.

This took me by surprise. I hadn’t really noticed that my “spoon drawer” had morphed into something in need of an overhaul. For years I have added random forks and spoons indiscriminately to the drawer. Eventually, the collection expanded to the point of requiring the use of a second drawer.

At the time of Megan’s suggestion, I presented the argument that I needed all of these when we have our big family Thanksgiving dinner each fall.

“Buy a box of good plastic spoons and forks,” she suggested, “and save all that dish washing.”

“Good point,” I agreed, and followed my little task master into the store.

I obliged her by looking a good long while at every set of flatware in three different stores before declaring a hung jury. We saw every style imaginable, and I couldn’t narrow it down to the one that belonged in my kitchen.

I would decide on a different day, I told her. Meanwhile, I went home to give it more thought, and to clean out the drawer that had set this whole thing into motion.

When I started the sorting process, I found that, intermixed with the odds and ends, was a nice enough matching service for eight along with four or five serving pieces of the same design. I wiped out the empty drawer and cleaned crumbs from the plastic silverware organizer, then replaced the matching pieces in spooned stacks in their appropriate slots.

The neatness was quite a contrast from the untidy conglomerate that had filled the drawer earlier. I felt compelled to open the drawer a time or two later in the day just to peek again at how nice it looked.

I called Megan to let her know I wouldn’t need to buy new silverware after all and to proudly report my organizational progress.

This sparked an idea. She suggested coming over one day soon to help me organize my entire kitchen. I honestly didn’t feel my kitchen was all that needy, but I gladly accepted her offer of free assistance.

A Saturday morning or two later, my girl Megan arrived in full organizational mode. She started right away with the upper cabinet next to the refrigerator. As she tidied up the shelves, she found items right away that were needlessly taking up space. The first casualty was an opened package of wooden sticks that I had purchased for the shish kabobs we had grilled for her birthday several years ago.

“Why do you still have these?,” she asked, noting that the package was still nearly full.

“I thought I might do that again sometime,” I weakly defended myself.

“Garage sale!” she stated, as though the decision needed no more discussion, and tossed the package into a box on the floor.

And so, on and on it went as she quickly and effectively worked her way around the room. She found some of my reasons for keeping things downright comical, and I was forced to come up with a better reason than “because I have had that thing forever” for hanging on to something I hadn’t used in over a year.

We laughed a lot and argued a little. I won some, I lost some. And, in the end, little Ms. Efficient left me with a kitchen that is definitely the best it has been organized in years. We stored four boxes of castaways in the spare bedroom.

I went and dug out my old colander after she left. Her dad is still looking for his cereal bowls.

Annette Rowe is a freelance writer from rural Gentry and a speech-language pathologist at Siloam Springs High School. She may be reached by email at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 6 on 01/23/2013