After spending the morning at Buck’s Automotive where they now know me by name “Hey! It’s Kaitlyn and the Ford Ranger! It must be Tuesday!” I spent the rest of the day trying to get my apartment together.

I actually moved in yesterday, but took a look around and realized I couldn’t move my stuff in until I cleaned the whole place. But that necessitated a shopping trip because it’s a furnished apartment in the sense of furniture but the cleaning supplies stop at a broom. So commenced a pleasant trip to Target complete with dozens of debates like “do I spend $40 on a vacuum cleaner or just put up with filthy carpet? (vacuum) If I buy a mop, can I buy the cheapest one or will I just come back tomorrow because it broke? (go cheap) How clean does it really need to be for 6 weeks? (clean enough, so yes, buy all those spray and a bunch of those sponges)” A couple hundred dollars later I got home and spent the rest of the day cleaning and then unpacked the stuff I had with me.

When I got to that point at about 9pm, I realized how few kitchen supplies there were in the apartment – a plate, a fork, a scary looking pan… – but figured I’d go to my storage shed and get my own stuff to use.  So today I drove over there after getting my tires replaced, endured the usual headaches of figuring out what boxes I needed and how to get them out and finally pulled out all the boxes I could find marked “kitchen.” I drove them home (to the opposite side of town, mind you), unpacked, laid everything out and took stock.

I expected a certain number of duplicates because that’s a giant downside to being on the road. Imagine packing your whole life into two suitcases so you can travel for a living. Chances are good you will not pack your coffee cup and cereal bowls. However, chances are equally as good that you will need a coffee cup at some point. At first you buy a cheap one and when you get tired of carrying it around, you leave it somewhere. But after purchasing and abandoning 2-3 cups, you figure you’ll buy a nice one and keep it. Then the show closes or you go on vacation, so you pack the nice cup away in your storage shed and when you get another show, you pack your two suitcases, go on the road and you need a damn coffee cup!  Repeat repeat repeat.

If the list stopped at coffee cups, this would be a smaller problem. But the situation grows exponentially if you are lucky enough to stay in furnished apartments occasionally and unlucky enough to like to cook and bake.  I’ve got multiple coffee grinders and coffee pots, enough wine keys to outfit this entire apartment complex and don’t even get me started on wooden spoons, rubber spatulas and dish towels because I think I’ve bought a full set for every apartment. It’s maddening.

All this to say that I knew these “kitchen” boxes were a hot mess but I was unprepared for the weirdness of the selection consisting of one cereal bowl, one juice glass, 4 coffee cups, 2 blenders, a wooden muddler I’ve never used, a wok, about eleventy billion spoons, 2 forks and a plethora of wooden spoons and rubber spatulas. Who packed this stuff?

It might be more helpful to list the things I need and know that I own but don’t know where they are: forks, knives, plates, glasses, cookware, cutting boards. I have a fully stocked kitchen somewhere in that dusty little hell hole of a storage space! But I’d have to spend several more days to hunt it all down and I’ve got other things I need to do. So you know what that means?

I WENT AND BOUGHT THEM.

Again.

To repeat, I am finally, for the first time in 5 years, in the same town with all my stuff and I can’t find it or get to it so I have to go buy things I already own.

Somewhere there’s a camera and Ashton Kutcher is laughing.