Today, I will be celebrating my 16th wedding anniversary. In 16 years, I have come to the conclusion that my wife is definitely smarter, more resourceful, more practical and certainly more mature that I will ever aspire to be.

She is the one who keeps order in our family, makes sure things like Christmas and birthday cards are sent when they are supposed to be sent, and reminds me every six months to tend to the chores she asked me to do six months prior.

Recently, she has reminded me that we have to go through our closet and finally get rid of some of the clutter that has amassed there through the years. She claims I am a pack rat. I like to think otherwise, but she is right about most things, so I believe she is right about this.

Her parents recently moved from a large house to a small apartment in a senior living facility and took the opportunity to downsize. This, in turn, spurred something in my wife and she decided we needed to downsize as well. With paper in hand, she divided the house into little quadrants and gave us each a section to start in.

I got the closet. She got the couch and a glass of merlot.

This was going to be quick and easy. There was going to be no nostalgia, no fond remembrances of where I bought such-and-such. This was going to be surgical. Quick and easy. In and out.

There was going to be no need for her to remind me every six months to do this. I poured a cup of coffee and planned my strategy. After the coffee, I was going to have a doughnut. Two doughnuts, tops. Possibly another cup of coffee. I was going to watch the morning news and get right on taking care of the closet.

Below is a short list of some of the things I found:

• A big blue “W,” reminding me I actually lettered in something in high school.

• The Official Preppy Handbook. I think I have had my copy since the fall of 1981.

• Three unredeemed scratch-­off lottery tickets. One each from Maryland, Delaware and New York. Winnings totaling $4.

• Thirty-five shoes. Shouldn’t this be an EVEN number?

• Five navy blazers. Four single-breasted, one double-breasted. Three with stains, one missing a button or three, and one just perfect.

• A cardboard box from Neiman Marcus. I have never purchased anything from Neiman Marcus, nor do I know anyone who can afford to shop there.

• A parking ticket from 1995.

• Hangers. Lots of wire hangers, grouped together in one side of the closet, their little hooks intertwined.

• A baseball.

• A Nerf football.

• Three golf balls.

• A movie ticket from something I don’t remember seeing, but must have because I have the ticket.

• Nine assorted canvas tote bags. The coolest one is from LL Bean, but it has the logo for the American Urological Association on the side, so I don’t want to be seen in public with it.

• A pencil sharpener shaped like Snoopy.

• An assortment of used library books I bought from the little kiosk in the library and forgot I bought because I put them in the closet to hide them from company when I really didn’t feel like cleaning the house.

• A Mondale/Ferraro campaign button. Don’t ask. I’m not a Democrat and I was 14 in 1984.

• Sixty­-three cents in nickels and pennies.

• Dice. Lots of dice.

• An assortment of board games we bought when we decided to host a weekly game night with our friends. None of us could figure out the instructions to most of them, so we just played Scrabble until we gave up game night three weeks later.

• A big plastic container of beads from when my wife and daughter were going to make their own jewelry.

• A big spool of cord for the beads.

• The broken Dustbuster from when I tried to clean up the beads after the 11th time the big plastic container opened in the closet.

I have gathered all of the items and put them in cardboard boxes and painstakingly labeled each box with detailed description of the contents. I have neatly stacked each of the boxes in a corner of our living room beside the steamer trunk full of family photos I need to sort sometime in the future.

I am thinking about having a yard sale. I’ll have to buy a new table, because last year, my wife made me throw away the old one we used to keep in the closet.

Baltimore native Joe Weaver is a husband, father, pawnbroker and gun collector. From his home in New Bern, he writes on the lighter side of family life.

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Joe Weaver

Contributing Columnist