There's a handy dandy word in our language which is a special favorite of mine, for without it I couldn't label various boxes, folders or head up unknown budget items. The word is miscellaneous, which is a catchall tag for a number of items that just won't fit under any other heading.
Take a budget. On the page marked miscellaneous for February I can throw sporting events, dog license and rabies shot, prescriptions, an extra purchased book or record, a cup and saucer which goes into my collection and thus doesn't fit into the gift or household expense columns, scribbling type paper and that extra expenditure for candy. In fact anything, which doesn't positively come under the five or six main budget headings can be easily misplaced and forgotten under miscellaneous.
The word is a favorite of untidy minds declared a bank budget expert in an article on how to save money.
According to her this word with its thirteen letters should be thrown out, discarded and removed from the family account ledger, instead of just slipping in the item, theater tickets and the price, which I do. We should include the special program, intermission cokes or orange juice and the parking of the car or train and bus fare. So the ticket price is merely the beginning and I'd overlooked a leakage of nearly five dollars which never appeared in any expenditure columns. So, I gather, it's this miscellaneously marked budget section which holds the leaks in many a family's expense book.
This expert went on to explain that if you checked up on this column alone for several weeks you'd get a clear idea on what frills and fancies you're spending your money. Because generally those hard to place items are often unnecessary, a luxury or for fun entries, but I like them. I'll admit though, that this king sized word does cover up a multitude of my expenditures.
If I cash a check for forty dollars and come home with say thirty dollars worth of groceries, about two dollars in folding money, forty cents in change and draw a blank about the misspent seven dollars and sixty cents I can always turn to my friend miscellaneous and enter that seven dollars and sixty cents with a question mark in front. Now this makes things balance out nicely--saves wear and tear on my brain and causes Pop to meditate through n extra pipe full of tobacco as he studies the budget miscellaneous column on a monthly bill checkup.
Of course, the budget expert would certainly call this sloppy thinking because it's true that if you do check up on all the items thrown into miscellaneous, two bits you'll discover they shifted into more definite budget headings. For instance that five for dry cleaning can be transferred to clothing and the town sticker can be slipped into car upkeep. But if I keep on I wouldn't need this miscellaneous heading at all and budgets would lose all their excitement and mystery.
Now take the boxes nicely sealed and reposing in the attic and basement with their vague contents all labeled miscellaneous.
On a rainy afternoon I decide to clean the storage space under the laundry sorting table and discover four boxes marked Christmas ornaments and trims, two penciled clothes and six assorted sizes with one thing in common---they're all marked miscellaneous and what;s inside is a mystery,
In one is the missing rug yarn and hooker, complete with pattern and burlap backing. There's a purple sweater with the knitting needles left dangling in the middle of a purl one knit one line. Wrapped in the directions for the sweater is a bent red chicken candle and a box of dominoes. I end up putting them all back. Never can tell when I might want to finish the rug and sweater, and need some wax for a Christmas candle. But for now the logical place for all these mixed up items is right back in that box marked miscellaneous. That's part of the fun of cleaning--not knowing just what is in the boxes.
For awhile Pop took all the mystery out of cleaning up storage spots by labeling the contents of each box plainly in bold marking pencil on the outside. But over the years the items in the boxes have changed and the labels crossed out--so again over the listed items is one word--miscellaneous.
Now if you too use this mark to identify packages, files and budget pages welcome to the club. Maybe we aren't custodians of tidy minds, but like the Walrus of Lewis Carroll fame we can "talk of many things: of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax, of cabbages--and kings." Because we've all sorts of tag ends of information stored under miscellaneous in our heads.
Written February 19, 1964