Sorting

The eighteen year old moved back in. Not permanently. He came back for the summer, once his university courses were over.

But he wanted some privacy.

So he asked if he could rent the basement from Simone.

"Sure," Simone told him. "For a fee." After all, as Simone's hubby pointed out, there are costs associated with having someone living unsupervised in the basement.

After much deliberation, a price and terms were negotiated.

"No problem," the 18 year old promised. "I'll clean out the place, keep it clean and I'll observe house rules."

Simone and hubby cleaned the bulk of the apartment but the 18 year old had to vaccuum the carpets, empty the cupboards and wipe down the shelves in the kitchen then replace everything in an orderly fashion.

The carpet cleaning went well, in spite of one or three used q-tips found scattered here and there, courtesy of el cerdo, previous tenant. The cupboards and drawers? Now that was another story.

"I can't do it," the 18 year old went upstairs to tell his mother. "The dishes don't match, there's too many glasses and I think the plastic containers exploded violently in one of the drawers. There's no way to organize them properly."

Simone sighed. "What are you saying?"

The 18 year old took a deep breath and valiantly blurted to his pack rat mother, "I'll have to throw some of them out. If that's okay," he added hurriedly, his worried expression indicating that he might have been expecting a blow-up of some sort.

"Okay," Simone replied as equably as possible, admirably mastering the urge to tell him to keep all the containers just in case.

"Thanks," smiled the 18 year old, relaxing his shoulders.

"See?" Simone patted herself on the back. "It wasn't that difficult."

But she did rifle through the discarded containers and dishes once or four times to determine what she could salvage for herself...