In the absence of a trip to Maui or a Palm Springs getaway, I opted to do the obvious thing: reorganize the files.
Granted, the file-folder re-org is to Maui what the laundry is to a lottery win. It can hardly compare, but it has to be done — and better now than in July.
The files, which number in the hundreds — give or take several dozen — have a variety of names. There’s the one labelled Warranties. There’s the one labelled Automobiles. There’s the Credit Line file, the Kitchen Reno file, the Cell Phone file, the House Insurance file, the Work Benefits file and the Active file, which is not to be confused with the Inactive file.
There’s also the Miscellaneous file, of course, which contains a little of all the above.
I routinely feed things into the files. I rarely take anything out.
“You’re going to do what?” asked the husband, scratching his head.
“I’m going to reorganize the files,” I said.
“What files?” the husband asked.
“The file files!” I said. “I mean, if we wanted to learn how to put the coffee maker on the timer, we’d have to look in the coffee maker manual. Do you know which file it’s in?”
The husband shook his head.
Safe to say, we do not have a Coffee Maker file. We do not even have a Small Kitchen Appliances file. The manual, if it’s still in our possession, may well be in the Miscellaneous file, but that would remain to be seen.
Similarly, I decided I wanted to know how to make the oven do its self-clean thing, but I wasn’t sure whether those instructions were in the Kitchen Reno file or the Credit Line file — both of which were applicable. Turns out they were in neither.
“Maybe,” I said to the husband, “the instructions are in this file.”
“What’s it called?” he wondered.
“It’s called the To Do file,” I said. “Could be. After all, cleaning the oven would certainly be something we’d want to do.”
Turns out, the file-folder re-org was more challenging that I had imagined.
“Do you think we need to keep this?” I asked the husband. I was sitting at the kitchen table. Spread out before me were the contents of some financial file.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s the paperwork for our leased car,” I said. “That would be three leased cars back.”
Probably not, he said.
“What about this?” I wondered. It was the warranty for the hot-water heater. It had no doubt expired, but I couldn’t be sure. We decided to save it.
I spent the better part of the afternoon — and the better part of the following week — reorganizing the files. A handful of papers were tossed, but the remainder were reallocated, one file to another.
“Well,” said the husband, after I’d stuffed the last of the files back in the drawer. “Do you feel better now?”
I considered the question.
Moderately, I replied. But next year, I said, if I feel this urge, I’m simply going to ignore it. I’ll file the files under Not Right Now, and make my way to Maui.
