Roger Moroney: Everything has to be somewhere

This is a column of assurance for all blokes who have a shed or garage based on disorder.

Who subscribe to the theory that everything has to be somewhere.

That if you spend enough time looking for something you will find it.

Simply because everything has to be somewhere.

I once spent about an hour looking for a tiny cross-head screwdriver which was required to get the back off a child's novelty watch so I could change the batteries.

I knew it had to be somewhere and I did eventually find it ... which, as I saw it, was proof positive my theory was sound.

However (oh there is always a "however"), my grand-daughter was left far from convinced of my kindly "I'll fix it for you" words of encouragement.

She'd gone home for a nap by the time I found the thing ... which was in the bathroom.

In hindsight I sort of recalled taking it in there, but couldn't remember exactly why.

It was a good find as I also came across a tube of glue I'd been looking for a week earlier.

Again, I couldn't remember what the hell I was using it in there for ... although I suspect they may have been in the pocket of my shorts and I'd taken them out before firing the grubby dacks into the wash.

And so, it has come to pass (as I'm sure it has for many chaps) that my shed, an extension off the garage, is, to be perfectly frank, a shambles.

Although I have attempted to apply the doctrine of order.

For I once hammered six nails along a stretch of the wall I knew to be well away from plug sockets and possible wiring.

They would become the resting place for (from left to right) the hard broom, the plastic leaf rake, the steel rake, the shovel, the spade and the edge trimmer.

I drilled holes in the three implements which had no other means of being hung up, and all was fine and dandy.

Order.

That was about 14 months ago.

Yesterday, the only things hanging there were the edge trimmer, a couple of elastic bungee cords, a grubby cap and a tangle of nylon from the broken fishing reel (I figured it could come in handy for something else one day).

The hard broom is leaning against the house ... I think the shovel is down the back under the tree, the steel rake is in the shed somewhere. I've no idea where the spade is and the plastic leaf rake is, well, somewhere.

I mean, everything has to be somewhere.

The worktop bench is a landscape of tools, oil containers, tins, bent nails, strips of wire, rags, bottle tops, paint brushes, plastic tubing, offcuts of cardboard, tool boxes largely devoid of tools, a dodgy extension cord and more elastic bungee cords.

Oh, and scattered bird seed because the budgie cage goes in there at night.

Every couple of months, when I am forced to reluctantly admit to myself that maybe, just maybe, everything doesn't necessarily have to be somewhere, I embark on a clean-up.

I put all the flotsam and jetsam into a large bucket, although the last time I set forth on Operation Antishambles it took about 35 minutes to find the bucket.

I put all the nails into the small plastic box labelled "salted cashews" and all the screws into the jar labelled "Vegemite".

Order.

I re-assembled the tins of paint in a sort of pyramid and discarded the ones whose contents had turned quite solid.

Equally solid paint brushes also got the shove, as did anything which did not resemble anything.

I came across a couple of golf balls in a dusty old plant pot inside an old suitcase. I knew I'd put them somewhere.

I even hammered a couple more nails into the wall for the paint scraper and the garden clippers ... which will reside there when I find them.

For three days the place looked a picture.

By the end of the week it looked like a jigsaw.

With pieces missing.

But I know those pieces are all somewhere, because they have to be.

I am buoyed by reading tales of people like Burt Munro whose work sheds were wonderfully chaotic.

For there is an odd sort of order about disorder and besides, everything has to be somewhere.

If it's not, just borrow if off someone, although be prepared to wait because they probably can't find it either.

But hey, it'll be somewhere...

Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.