It is a missed opportunity for a Game Show! “ I am a plumber, what’s in my junk drawer in the kitchen?” Easy one to start with rubber drain plugs, Teflon pipe tape on a roll, Monkey wrench etc.

“I am a philosophy professor and writer, what’s in my junk drawer?” Used dialectic cliff’s notes, puns to cause groans during a debate. Disarming platitudes, Names of noted Greek philosophers, half full glasses of water.

“ I am an atheist and my wife is a deist, what’s in our junk drawer? Slightly tarnished valuable shelf gods of antiquity, pocket tracts of Richard Dawkins, various colors of silly putty for repairs to the idols and a small bible with “don’t panic” taped on the cover.

Our junk drawer is good to use as a collectible at the Smithsonian as Americana sculpture. The Norman Rockwell of junk drawers. It would be a hands-on installation starting out with a drawer that was sticky and had a screwdriver at the top that prevents it from opening.

Compartments that have several paper clips and stamps on a roll intertwined. Small flashlights that don’t and are empty of AAAA batteries.

I can give you an absurd compendium but I tire of trying open it and then find a small set of pliers that I wanted last week. There is a small Phillips screwdriver in there that I needed to disassemble a worthless scanner in there that we inherited. Being a ham operator it was irresistible to try and get it to work. The junk drawer revealed it on the bottom in the back of course. Stuck under a large pencil sharpener.

I recycled the old scanner because the batteries in it came from a pyramid excavation and I recycled it before the charger caused a melt down. There is a gap in King Tuts hand which the ancient scanner would fit. I saw that in Washington’s Smithsonian where his body is on show. Who can refute that? Another conspiracy story akin to the fake moon landings. I have made an offer for the used Moon rover but the shipping was out of this world.

Collectibles are an American tradition along with second hand stores. I can do away with the humorous and self sarcasm but there is a collectible that is often found in many homes and it is bound with old leather sometimes and dates back to the family for generations. A book written in 1611. The originals are priceless and can still be read! The King James Bible. The only thing in my junk drawer is an old Yad from Israel for reading such books. A pointer used to read scrolls of the words of wise antiquity.

If I just dig it out of the drawer, I know it has to be in there! I did find an old 5 shekel coin once and gave it away but I don’t think I gave away the Yad, Or did I?

I know it’s old and most of those sorts of things are pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe.