Buried Alive

There is always that moment in popular cartoon strips or television sitcoms or even movies where an unfortunate character heads for a closet. They are warned to not open it, to keep away from it at all costs.

Examples:
- The little boy who has been told to clean his room begs his mother to not open that door.
- The roommate who has a hot date stopping by dives in front of it when his girlfriend plans to hang up her coat.
- The dopey father brags about how organized he is and heads to the closet.

No matter what the possible reason for going to that door (save a slasher film wherein there will be a masked man weilding a chainsaw or an axe or whatever it is that evildoers use to kill their victims nowadays), the outcome is the same.

There is an avalanche.

The door opens, the character looks up into the darkness, their face suddenly pales with fear and horror and they throw up their hands to protect their face, and all at once they are overtaken by a wave of debris.

Old clothes. Trash. Discarded food. Homework. Random cardboard boxes, for effect.

There are times that this happens in real life. You may not think it ever happens, but it does. Really. There are even times when there is not a closet involved, but just a space which fills randomly with stacks and stacks of heaven-knows-what, and the slightest tap will cause it to all come tumbling down.

Let us be honest with one another: you have one. There's no shame in that, I have one too. I call it my desk.

There can be shelves stuffed with everything imaginable. There can be piles in the corner of things precariously positioned. There can even be one of those weird hammocks people stick in their bedrooms to throw stuffed animals into.

These are timebombs waiting to happen.

The other day, I shut my desk drawer too hard. Truth be told, I slammed it. I had one second to cringe in fear, realizing what I had done, and then it all came crashing down. The flashlight balancing on the top shelf, the stuffed monkey that someone gave me for Valentine's Day, the hat resting on top of a box of stale cookies, the pencils and the papers and the pens and the things that I had shoved on top of one another just to get them out of my way.

It came down.

When something like this happens, what exactly are you supposed to do about it? Cry? Well, okay, that is entitled, but that solves nothing.

I offer you advice, then.
Cry, but make it short. Rend your clothes if that helps.
Next, if you have cried, make sure you change it into hysterical laughter quickly or anyone rushing to your aid, having heard the deafening impact, will start to dial 9-1-1.
Finally, grab a shovel. You'll need it. Take careful aim and start stacking again.

Because that is how you did this in the first place, isn't it? Admit it! You know that your giant pile will come down any day now, and you knew it when it was forming and you started walking on tiptoes whenever you came near it, but you did nothing about it. Instead, you AIDED IT.

You made it worse! You added more mess! You tossed another paper or sweater up there, and you knew it was a mistake!

You are as guilty as I am, then.

So, while you grab your shovel and put things back to the way they were, so will I, your friend, his neighbor, his mother, her sister, her children, their best friends, their greatest enemies, and their one-day-offspring.

Happy shoveling. Try not to get buried alive.