Pupil Desk

Day 163: Pupil Desk
Today's lesson: stuff does not change who you are. Therefore, you should refrain from obtaining things intended to make you fitter, more organized, more studious, more timely, cleaner or a better cook. If you are already fit, or organized, or studious, or timely, or clean, or a good cook, additional tools - yoga mats, date books, pupil desks, clocks, Ajax, or frying pans - can come in handy. But yoga mats, date books, pupil desks, clocks, Ajax and frying pans will not turn you into Superwoman.

This lesson is exponentially truer when you are obtaining things intended to make other people fitter, more organized, more studious, more timely, cleaner, or a better cook. That's why this pupil desk simply took up space, becoming a repository for miscellaneous random items. Far from doing anybody any good, the desk actually decreased the value of the miscellaneous items that ended up in its drawers and cupboards, since those items (not belonging there) left the stream of useful objects. Lost. This pupil desk became our Island of Misfit Goods, a sanctuary for defective and unwanted objects, with no King Moonracer to serve as their advocate.

When I bought this (used from Craig's List), I imagined that Emma Jane - or maybe Sam - would sit studiously in an office chair, books spread out on the little shelf, papers in order. The drawers would be filled with neatly organized school supplies. The textbooks would never be misplaced. Our kitchen table, miraculously free of clutter, would not need to be cleared off for dinner. We would be able to put our feet on the coffee table without knocking down a stack of spiral-bound notebooks.

Of course, that didn't happen. Sam likes to do his homework at the kitchen table. Emma likes to sit on the couch. No pupil desk is going to change that.

Maybe some other kid will use it for organized study. Or maybe some other mother will use it to fuel her dreams.

At least the Misfit Goods - pens, makeup, water bottles, plastic forks, music books, chopsticks, construction paper, tiny notebooks, beads, sewing pins, magnets - have left the island and returned to civilization.