The Day The Closet Crashed

Last week on Thursday I had a pretty rough day.  There's a project I'm having trouble getting off the ground at work, and that day contained its fair share of frustration as a part of that effort. Came home late as a result.  Then, as I started trying to relax, I hung my suit coat up in the closet.

The whole thing fell.

I guess I should be more specific.  My closet consists of two of those white heavy-gauge wire things that presents a shelf and a wire to hang stuff from in a single unit.  One of those is actually what fell--the whole wire unit came off of the wall, anchors and all, and pitched forward and across the floor of the closet.

You'd think there would be a grand ka-boom when something like that happens, but no.  I'd actually already left the closet behind, and the only sound I heard was a gentle whoosh.  When I returned, all of my clothes were spread across the floor.

I live in an apartment.  The good thing about that is that I don't have to fix stuff like this myself.  The bad thing is that I don't get to fix stuff like this myself.  All in all, I was pretty happy with the maintenance service; I e-mailed them that evening and by Friday afternoon it was fixed.  They used the same holes, which I wouldn't have done, but they also used the flanged toggle type of anchors rather than the plastic ones that were in there.  After having it fall on me, I'd've probably wired them to the wall studs, myself--but then again, that presupposes that the walls have actual studs.

Ah, well.

It was a good thing, overall.  You know why?  Because I've been telling myself for months that I need to go through my overly crowded clothing rack and purge the stuff I don't wear.  I mean it--I've used that closet for two and a half years now, and there are (well, there were) things hanging there I hadn't even considered putting on since I hung them there the first time.  The light grey suede suit, ferinstance: I don't recall where/whom I inherited that from, but a) it's not my size, and b) I wouldn't wear it if it were.

So guess what I did this weekend?  Yep, I purged the closet.  Regained more than a foot of space in it.  It wasn't a hard thing to motivate myself to do; all my clothes were laying on the couch, after all.  They had to be put back in the closet, or not, one way or another.  So I did it.

You know, I didn't see it this way at first, but I guess I have to say that the collapse of the closet unit ended up being a good thing.

- TOSK