A Tisket, a Tasket, a Stupid Clothes Basket

I’ll admit – I have an organization problem. With clothes baskets in particular.

Two years ago, I wiped the slate clean and threw out most of my clothes baskets. It makes doing laundry a little tough, (especially when you have to carry a load outside to the clothes line) but the consequences of having a clothes basket in my possession are somewhat life threatening.

Because clothes baskets can be used for many things besides laundry.

You can use a clothes basket to put the pumpkins in that you pick from your garden the night before the hard frost. But they will freeze if you leave them in there, and then you have to dump the whole mess out anyway.

You can use a clothes basket to put your donated clothes in until you get the right size box to put them in and take them to Goodwill. But if you leave the basket sit in your dining room until Easter, you have to move the basket to the basement when you have the family over for dinner.

You can use a clothes basket to store the toys in that you dig out of the closet when kids come to play. But if you don’t put the toys away, the Barbie’s hair gets full of Silly Putty, the slinky gets wound around the Poky Little Puppy’s tail and no one can play with anything anymore.

You can use a clothes basket to put groceries in that don’t fit into your pantry. But then you have to move the basket every time you want to open the refrigerator.

You can use a clothes basket to put your cleaning supplies in that don’t fit under your sink. But then the Mr. Clean will spill out on the dust rag and you will get suds when you use it to dust the coffee table.

You can even give your grandchildren a ride in a clothes basket, pulling them across the dining room floor, with them giggling as you screech around the corner – tumbling them onto the living room carpet.

And you can use a clothes basket as a hamper.

Like the one that I use as a hamper in my closet.

Last Saturday, against my better judgment, I fell off the wagon and put my laundry in one of the few clothes basket I still own and carried it to the washing machine.
I washed and dried the clothes and in my haste, threw the clean clothes back in the clothes basket.

To be folded later.

The basket stayed in the hallway all week. Then I moved the basket to my bedroom. There it sits, piled with other clean clothes that I haven’t put away yet – but plan to soon. Sometime this week. Or for sure by Saturday.

Yes, it’s almost time to do laundry again, but this time I will carry each load individually to the washer, and immediately fold each load as I take it out of the dryer and then put the clothes away.

Right away.

The papers that should be in files are in a clothes basket in my office. (The file folders are in a box on the closet shelf). When I need to find something, I dig through the basket. If I can’t find it after about an hour of looking, I just buy a new whatever it is.

Yes, it’s almost tax time again, but this year I vow to use my new label maker to label each file folder in the box and put them in the drawer in my desk. And to put the papers in the files.

Right away.

Because I shouldn't come within a mile of a clothes basket.