Every household has them: A drawer — maybe in the kitchen, maybe a bathroom — where unrelated junk just seems to accumulate on its own. I knew there was a box in the garage with the contents of a junk drawer from the previous house. I feared it.

I found it.

Box 12: Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023

CONTENTS: Look! I even labeled the box “Junk.” So why didn’t I just throw it away in the first place? But here’s the question that really haunts me: The label also says “Island Drawer C.” Does that mean there were at least two other junk drawers in the old house that I named “Island Drawer A” and “Island Drawer B?” And, if so, do they have their own boxes in the garage? This box itself contains, as you might expect, an eclectic assortment of junk: Old metal kitchen implements. More chopsticks! An assortment of over-the-counter (and long expired) medications. Wrapped tongue depressors — from which doctor’s office did we swipe those from? An alarm clock that just needs a new battery to work. A flashlight, same story. A little bit of fur from a cat, who showed up at our house one day and didn’t leave until we found him a new home. Linus, as we named him, was a good cat, with just one flaw. And something slugged “Parasite Collector,” which, upon reflection, we’re hoping is a kit designed to capture stool samples from a pet.

DISPOSITION: To my great relief, the household Master Recycler does not share my fear of the box and sorts through it with purpose and energy. (Every household needs a Master Recycler.) The medications will go to the drug-disposal box outside the Philomath Police Department’s headquarters. Metal objects that we can’t give away will be recycled at the scrap-metal bin at the Republic depot. The strips of newsprint that inexplicably were in the box will be recycled. The tongue depressors will go into the new junk drawer in the bathroom, because you just never know in this era of pandemics when you might need one. But much of this box will be thrown away, just like I should have tossed it three years ago.