Inspiration struck again today when I thought, where did I put my passport?

I found it in my dresser drawer, which makes sense, because for heaven’s sake, it would have been eaten by the mess in my nightstand.

The nightstand I have is one of my favorite pieces of furniture.  I bought it a few years ago at an antiques mall that has since been mowed down for an actual mall.  I had just moved into my apartment on Pennsylvania Street and signed a short-term lease in the hopes that my then boyfriend would ask me to marry him and then we could start our lives together — in his big suburban house.  So I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to spend a lot of money on furniture for my temporary digs.  My gal-friend Gloria and I went to the antiques mall to pick.

We found the perfect nightstand at the perfect price ($30).  It is green and “antiqued” and distressed.

Of course, things didn’t work out exactly as I planned with the boyfriend, but the nightstand remained faithful and LOVES C.

So here it sits.  All looks well from the outside.  This is the beauty of drawers.

Drawers hide stuff.

Stuff like…THIS!!!

Basically, all four drawers were filled to the brim like the top one.  It was disturbing.

Look!  I found my Gap credit card…and 50 handwritten letters from middle and high school…and a cedar block.

For 30 minutes, interrupted only for a grilled cheese sandwich and a small glass of wine, I recycled, threw away and made a small pile of things for Goodwill.  There were four wallets in the nightstand.  Four.  Empty.  Wallets.

And now it looks like this, so I can go to bed.

(Yes, this is the top drawer.  I tried to put all of my important stuff in this drawer, like my retainer, a fishnet Madonna sleeve, fake hipster glasses, a bedazzled pedometer and my New York pepper spray.)