Being a Packrat Pays Off

I went looking in the garage for a second broom just now.

Oldest and Youngest sons decided to have a Spaghetti Fling in the kitchen last night, and after scraping limp pasta off the front of the dishwasher and picking it out of the mudroom rug, I decided they would spend today doing chores. After washing walls, chairs, doorjambs, and the toilet (they're closer to it, and besides, they're boys - they get it dirtier), I figured they'd be less likely to redecorate my kitchen again anytime in the near future.

So their last chore was to sweep the outside walkway from the back door to the back gate. Hence, I needed two brooms.

This should not have been a problem. We have four. But three are apparently missing, perhaps eaten by the nocturnal garage-dwelling Broom Monster.

At any rate, that's not what this post is about. Because as I was searching for the now MIA broom, I found a piece to an old baby gate that we replaced with a new version of the same thing and use to keep the dog off the back deck. Until now, we've been wedging the gate closed in a creative fashion that the dog can't - yet - figure out. But with this piece I found in lieu of the broom, we can actually lock the gate closed now!

See, there is a reason to keep anything that just might be useful at some point in the future. Now if I could only find those brooms...