Solving the Glove Problem

We have a lot of gloves, many, many gloves, not as many gloves as books, but still, a plethora of gloves--and mittens, not to mention hats. The gloves--and the mittens, and the hats, but we’ll drop the hats now, because this is not about hats--live in a wicker box by the front door, next to the shoe pile, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Every time someone needs gloves--or mittens--the contents of the entire box get dumped onto the shoes while the glove-needer, or the parent of the glove-needer, seeks a matching pair. (Unless the glove-needer is me, because I, sensibly, keep my gloves in the pockets of my jackets: the purple fuzzy ones in my parka, the black ones in my leather jacket, the blue-striped ones in my fleece.)

But the other day I realized that if you put one glove--or mitten--inside the other, or velcro them together, if there is velcro, or clip them together, if there are clips, and THEN put them in the box, it will be easy to find a matching pair, and maybe, just maybe, the box won’t have to be dumped out onto the shoes.

I felt really smart when I realized this. But then I thought maybe everyone else already knew it, and I felt kind of dumb.