Did anything important happen yesterday? I’ve had my head in a diving bell for days. But just in case it’s relevant, I offer the following, on the theme of “Out with the old, in with the new.”

There are ways to tell you’re approaching the end of your useful years.

Your flesh loses its snap and begins to puddle. Weird things start growing on your person out of sheer cellular exuberance. You hear yourself saying “But we just put that roof on” and realize that was thirty years ago.

But nothing quite says “old” like opening a cabinet door and thinking “At least it hasn’t gone Fibber McGee on me.”

Because that isn’t even a reference to anything in my lifetime. That’s like my parents cracking wise about Grover Cleveland. That is an antique reference to a radio show I never listened to, and that was in fact petering out when I was an infant, and yet somehow I know that Fibber McGee had a hall closet that disgorged torrents of bric-a-brac whenever he opened the door.

Which means I know one more thing about Fibber McGee than I do about Charli XCX. Go ahead, call the coroner.

The contents of the cabinet in question have been defying gravity for years now. It’s where I keep all my nice storage containers, and also my funky but serviceable storage containers, and the lids to storage containers I can no longer locate but might someday, and—continuing down the caste levels—five thousand plastic tubs from cottage cheese to yogurt to the store olive bar, and, probably, somewhere, their lids. There has been some attempt over the years to nest them by size every now and then, just often enough to be able to jam in some more, but mostly it’s a jumble. I usually pop a new one in on top like it’s a Jenga tower and hope for the best.

Sure, my city allows me to put these containers in the recycling bin at the curb, but not their lids, and I have never felt confident anything good happens to them after that, or if they just get buried in the Landfill of Liberals’ Shame. Here, the city says, we’ll take them. They’ll go to a farm in the country where they can play with all the other tubs.

But it would be even better if I could actually reuse them. Someday. Wouldn’t it? Yes it would, Fibber.

Somewhere behind all the cottage cheese containers would be the other miscellany: vases, a teapot, freezer paper that won’t fit in a drawer, water bottles, a bag of marbles. Worse, this is one of those corner spaces where the door is hinged and doesn’t actually open all the way, and you need to get on your hands and knees, and employ core muscles you don’t have, to reach anything in the back corner. My neglected waffle iron is in there. Also various items I ordered from a paper catalog forty years ago, like the little elastic plastic bowl covers in every size. One bundle of them would be sufficient for a lifetime but I have three such. Pootie scored a shower cap but otherwise they haven’t even been opened.

So on a day in which I had two hours to spare before I had an appointment, I opened that cabinet door and thought: hell. It’s time.

The contents soon covered every inch of a long kitchen counter and I set to work. A half hour later I had succeeded in sorting them such that now two counters were fully involved. The smallest pile was for the garbage can. Another was destined for the curb in a Free Box, which is a remarkably effective way station to the garbage can. The third pile would be put back in the cleaned cabinet.

I didn’t even bother to take out the two nice stew pots in the far corner. I use one of them sometimes, and the other I used to use when I brewed beer but probably won’t use again. But it’s a quality pot and it isn’t bothering anybody in the far corner. Underneath both of those is what appears to be a shiny new grill that gets plugged into a range top we replaced thirty years ago. I can’t imagine who could use it. It’s not hurting anybody in there.

But I did pick out a half dozen of my best cottage cheese containers and their lids, and nested them neatly, just in case I need them, and I shut the door. Probably a mistake. They whelp in the dark.