BUCKING THE SYSTEM: A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING, WITH LUCK, IN ITS PLACE

& Everybody has a junk drawer, but what happens when that area has been relegated to the front seat of your car?

When I opened my first gift Christmas morning, I found my husband had bought me a car grooming kit. The kit didn't include a chamois or deodorizer or nice things like that.

No, my husband had bought me a vinyl trashbag, visor organizer for important papers and a CD wallet.

"You want me to go out and put these in your car?" he asked with a smug look.

I just looked upside his head. Lucky for him, he had another gift under the tree for me that could be worn. Otherwise, Christmas would have been over for everyone.

True to his word, Patrick took a trash bag out to my car, threw everything he could find in it, and placed the entire load on our back porch. He told me to review the bag's contents at my leisure, then returned to the car to install the grooming kit. Later, he admonished me to use my new gifts well and often and said he would wash it occasionally if I did so.

Less than three months later, I have no idea where that kit is.

I didn't realize that my car was quite so junky until a friend asked for a ride after lunch earlier this week. She just needed a ride to the repair shop to pick up her car, so I told her it was no problem. That was before I remembered there was no place to sit in my car other than the driver's seat or the two child car seats it took me way too long to learn how to belt correctly.

My front passenger seat and floor was a jumble of CDs, cassette tapes, newspapers, fast-food trash, preschool art projects and handouts from civic board meetings. It took me five minutes and a whole lot of energy to get all the stuff that had collected moved to the floor of the back seat.

Finally, with sweat ruining my makeup and me just a little bit out of breath, I told my friend she could get in. She stared for a couple of seconds before shaking her head and gingerly sitting down on the crumbs I couldn't entirely rid the seat of.

"What's your trunk look like?" she asked. I told her I didn't know because I haven't used it in about a year.

My situation is not unique. According to research conducted daily as I walk through the parking lot at work, most reporters have poor car-grooming skills. For the most part we don't wash our cars or throw away trash or even top off the tank very often. I think it's because we're so busy getting from point A to point B and back again that we don't take the extra minute to straighten things out.

Our desks look much the same. I gave up trying to keep a clean desk years ago. Now I just try to maintain creative disorder and locate all the notes and research from various projects I have running simultaneously.

Usually this system works for me at work and in my car. That's why Patrick wasn't allowed to indiscriminately throw away papers when he cleaned the car out three months ago. I know if something's in the car or on my desk or in my office at home, the something that looks unimportant to a lay person is the exact paper I need for my next meeting.

It's the same system people have with their junk drawers at home. You may not know if the pens or batteries or calculator or lighter will work, but by God, you know it's in that drawer. And when people try to organize that drawer, it leaves us unable to find anything when we need it.

As for my car, I'm going to clean it out this weekend, and I'll try to put everything I find in a relevant location. I might even open my trunk and find out what's back there.

Who knows, I just might find my car grooming kit.