When the weekend arrived, I vowed to make an inventory of shoes a priority.
The bedroom is arranged somewhat like the kitchen on an airplane. Every wall is occupied with dressers, night stands and the shelving unit for miscellaneous supplies.
This made pulling out the bed to scavenge for shoes a lot like climbing under the house to check plumbing.
Once I reached the darkness, I discovered the secret hiding place for gray kitty hair, much of which had amassed on the collection of winter shoes.
It logically made sense to go ahead and pull out the bed to do a thorough sweep.
By the time this was done, we might as well put on those protective covers for the mattress, which Mom bought us months ago. Again, this was not the easiest task in a room crammed with furniture.

While the room was in disarray, the inevitable next step was to pull out the night stands and discover treasures lost long ago.
I found a trove of hair clips, pens, loose change, candy wrappers and more kitty fur.
Next, we might as well clean off the wall next to the bed, since it is unknown when the next excavation in that region of the room will occur.
Luckily, we had several shallow plastic boxes with lids. Once the relocated shoes were dusted and sorted for the thrift store, the shoes are now sealed and ready for relatively easy retrieval.
Yet, a large part of Saturday had elapsed.

Later that same weekend
My aunt recently bought a home in Mexico, which means I will someday visit her, requiring a passport.
Sunday was a similar exploration of chaos, this time to find my birth certificate to start the passport process.
Because I had already looked "everywhere" (including under the bed), I needed to find some new "everywheres" which included the collect-all filing cabinet.
This is where we shove things from the counter when my mother visits or we host a barbecue.

The "filing cabinet" was a two-person job because there were some important decisions to be made.
These included where to file car repair receipts, whether to keep certain coupons, and what to do with a myriad of love notes dating back to 2005.
"Cleaning" the filing cabinet involved an intricate set of piles of paperwork on the linoleum floor.
There was a huge sense of accomplishment after this hours-long task, and we now have ample space to shove items if a future need arises.
However, there was no birth certificate.

Proof of my birth was finally located in the "Christmas trunk," where I discovered I also store the remnants of my childhood Barbie collection, miscellaneous foreign coins and baby books.
This search had added benefits because we also located the Santa suit, which one of our friends might want to borrow for Halloween.
I guess this entire process, while time consuming and dusty, convinced me that cleaning can actually be a good thing.
The next task, I suppose, is to go through my closet, which is so stuffed that Tommy must store his clothes in the utility room. The important decisions there will include which clothes to bring back into daylight in time for daylight saving time.

RIDICULOUS SHOE GALLERY