Proper Closet Construction

I've got a buddy of mine that is redoing his closet. I've redone some closets in my day and I have some thoughts that I'd like to share about closest remodeling and renovation.

The first is to not do it. Redoing a closet is like - on your first day of skiing - strapping on a pair of sticks, going to the top, and "making" your way to the bottom. In your mind you heard race cars. You heard fighter jets. You could hear footloose. Kevin Bacon is older now but still looks great... and so will I.

But we could only hear the screaming. We saw your splayed limbs. We saw small children dance skiing past you. We saw the elderly gracefully and slowly snowshoeing beyond you. And you had said "take me to the top". Take me to the top you said. Where is the beach, and the boom box, and the roller skates you said... too late.

Well friends closet remodeling is like this. You think that it will be great. You say to yourself, "This is what we've been waiting for isn't it? This is what we worked so hard for. This is why I helped to organize the honor society induction ceremony even though I had no shot at ever making it into the honor society but wanted to write it on my college application to suggest that I had rubbed elbows with the intellectually elite. This is why we've been driving this crappy car. This is why we've been clipping coupons, playing the lotto, reading to the blind, siphoning the neighbors gas, hand making pinatas".

But once that closet is all done do you want to know what happens? I'll tell you what happens. You start to buy things. You doubled the space you had so you have to fill up the space. And it isn't with a bunch of junk. Its with pants that are too tight and fashionable. Its with shoes from Sweden and scarfs you bought on your trip to Paris. Its with your kids college money and your dreams of a comfortable retirement. All for this new closet.

And no one tells you that the kids will hang from the bars. That they'll dig in your sock drawer. That you'll never have any privacy again. That the rest of your life becomes managing a slow decline of you metal capacity, and virility, and hope. You might as well head off to the bread maker but instead of plump morsels of nutrition... you only end up with loaves of hate.

So my friends. The best type of closet construction is none. None of this. None at all.