As humans, we just collect and keep random items all the time. Inevitably, not everything has a place it belongs. We hold on to pennies, broken pencils, and pumpkin carving kits that really have no significance in our lives, because we don’t use pennies, the pencil sharpener is missing, and October was last month. However, we all understand there is one place in our houses, dorm rooms, or apartments that has no exclusivity, and that’s the junk drawer. The junk drawer is this beautiful space in the universe where everything belongs, and nothing is categorized. All the items just exist chaotically in harmony. And, every time you look in the drawer and think, “Why do I still have this dead battery from 2009?” you don’t even touch it, because there is nowhere else to put it. You could throw it away, but it’s really not hurting anything, it’s just existing. This leads me to my main point: LET EXISTENCE BE! The world should be more like a junk drawer.

Sure there is a weird sticky substance coating the bottom that has taken a few paper clips for ransom, but the junk drawer does not discriminate against religion, race, culture, attractiveness, social status, economic status, or disabilities. It accepts all things. Even towards that pair of headphones that haven’t worked for months, and every time you go to use them, you’re reminded once again that they are just broken tangled mess that you use casually, are continually accepted back into the drawer. There is no judgment among the remnants of the junk drawer, therefore, there is nothing but peace regarding the junk drawer. Everything resides peacefully, and there are no debates about controversial red cups, or Muslim/ISIS overlap. I recognize that the world is never going to be perfect, but neither is the junk drawer and that’s the beauty of it!

Even when the junk drawer gets skipped over for annual cleaning, it is still a mess! No matter how much time is put into make it organized, the moment you need something, it is once again a disaster! And, every time you revisit it, it is different. It is constantly changing and developing new little crumbs, and collecting more irrelevant, but somehow necessary, objects. There are always bigger and smaller erasers and pens that get used more often than others, but there is no jealousy in the junk drawer. And I’m sure that if items in the junk drawer had cell phones, they’d text each other back. Everything just seems to work better, together, in a place where there is no fight for acceptance. Maybe your nephew's school picture was not meant to be put in the junk drawer, and was intended to be framed, but you don’t really like him, so he was accepted by the junk drawer.

Your sister is probably going to be really mad at you when she comes over for Christmas and her son's school picture is not hung on the wall, because it is stuck, face down, to a bag of cat treats, and it would probably be a good idea to hang the picture. But it is secured to the cat treats by this gum you threw in the junk drawer last week after deciding you didn’t like gum that tasted like pineapples. However, it is not the gum’s fault you don’t like it, so the junk drawer accepts it. If someone is different, let them be different and accept them! Encouraging standardization is shameful. There should never be an instance of hindrance in regards to anything. Everything belongs in that beautiful, messy drawer, as it should in the real world. Even the gum that tastes like pineapples.