Long story short, the only place to put the air conditioning unit was my wardrobe, which was stymied by The Dreaded Pile. The Dreaded Pile was clothes. Often clothes that had slipped off hangers, but sometimes out-of-season clothes where I’d just gone “oh my GOD” . The mismatched hangers, a collection of plastic shop ones and half-broken velvet ones and wore ones and a pack of 5 wooden ones I’d brought in an effort to feel grownup, clattered and clashed and tangled with each other, shedding clothes and tucking themselves into each other.
Some of the Pile was in plastic boxes, but there had been avalanches. Avalanches of loose clothes and plastic boxes are worse than either of those separately .There were plastic boxes of things I hadn’t worn for years, possibly because of the pile. It didn’t look very mature or grownup. It was fine because I “knew what was in the pile” and the doors closed, and the room always looks decent. Like, I’m a grownup!
If you asked about the Pile (which you wouldn’t - you would instantly say: Elodie has three kids and a disabled spouse, and a decent level day job, and aspirations of being a writer, and I expect them to post frequently on tumblr - I myself do not prioritise Elodie’s closet AT ALL and do not expect Elodie’s shit to be together. You’d have that kindness for me.) but if you asked I would probably admit that I didn’t LIKE the Pile at all, but had no TIME for the Pile.
I removed many bags to the charity shop etc, and - this is odd, but key - bought new clothes, as having one decent item that fills three roles is better than having three pieces of slightly unsatisfactory chaff. And then I went “abblbublbublubluh” and stopped in some puzzlement.
My husband did something very clever and kind for me, then. He bought 100 hangers. That sounds like an absurd number of hangers, doesn’t it? Like bourgeois hangers. Who buys a HUNDRED hangers.
They are furthermore special and nice hangers that are designed to keep clothes from falling off. There’s none of this dicking around. It turns out that “clothes fall off clothes hangers” is a problem solved by purchasing decent clothes hangers that don’t do that.
And he sent the mismatched, rubbish, collection of random hangers to charity. And he, in kindness, specifically and intentionally hung up all my clothes. All of the hangers are completely matching in shape, size orientation etc, so all the clothes hang completely flat. And there were blank hangers left over, lots of them. so that if I had some laundry to put away, there was always a hanger and the perception of huge amounts of space.
This was so revolutionary and such a kind act. And it literally killed the Dreaded Pile, which has never come back. It’s very surprising how much in life is down to strange troubleshooting problems like “this is going to sound literally insane, but trust me, you are going to have to buckle up and spend a stupid amount of money on clothes hangers.”
But genuinely. Think about it. Do you just need to replace all your clothes hangers with ones that function better, so you have somewhere to put stuff.
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