One of these photos is of the cutlery drawer. I know exactly what it contains: knives, forks, and spoons. Its the cutlery drawer. It's name tells you what to expect when you open it.
The other photo is of.... well it doesn't really have a name in our house - it's just "the drawer" - but it's what Michael McInyre hilariously calls the man-drawer (start at 1 minute 30 seconds). I thought it would be interesting to see what's in it:
- keys, 15, of which only 4 have a known current use
- plastic coin bank bags, 5, all empty
- glue, 4 x super-glue, 2 x glue-stick, 1 x bostik, 3 still usable
- pens, 4 black, 1 grey, 1 red, a few still usable
- spanners, 1 x 7/16", 1 x 10mm
- chalk, 1, yellow, an escapee, we have a chalk box elsewhere
- radiator bleeding keys, 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 black
- drill chuck key, so that's where it is!
- drill bits, 3, I never knew they were there
- tape, 1 x sellotape, 1 x black electricians - aha, useful, pilfered for fishing
- paper clips, about 50, loose, box-escapees
- drawing pins, about 100, loose, box-escapees, be careful when rummaging
- string, ah yes, would have been handy a few days ago
- screwdrivers, 1 x 7" blue thin phillips, 3 x 4" watchmakers, plus 3 x 2" from an xmas cracker - never used, put in the drawer simply to keep the other screwdrivers company
- screws, a few, loose, also keeping the screwdrivers company
- tape measures, 1 x blue plastic non retractable, 2 x orange metal retractable, 1 x yellow metal retractable, clearly excess tape measures have been purchased when existing ones were temporarily lost
- matchbox, large, half full
- electrical lead, black, unknown use
Once you start a "utility" drawer it has an unstoppable force. All things can then be classified as being possibly of utility. It becomes a magnet for all things. If utility-drawers could expand infinitely they would turn into black-holes and consume everything in the known universe.
If you have a utility-drawer, unless it was born very recently in a house you've just moved into, it's almost certain to be completely full. Frequently you can't even close the utility-drawer because it's so full. When this happens a second immutable law kicks in - taking anything out of the utility-drawer is strictly forbidden. Possible work-arounds include brute-force drawer closure, crushing items flat, and jiggling the whole utility-drawer in a kind of simulated-annealing fashion in a vain attempt to get everything to settle down a bit.
Once your utility-drawer is full it will bud out into new forms. For example, I also have a utility-tin (batteries of indeterminate age live here), a utility-folder (instructions for 10 year old appliances live here), and a utility-cabinet (coins from out of circulation currencies live here). Michael would be proud.
