DURING SPRING CLEANING, my husband, Steve, and I were in high gear, glancing at long-unused items and throwing them away. Several days later, we discovered some of them were still needed - a part to a file cabinet, a car-vacuum piece, an attachment for a kitchen rack. That weekend we finished our in-depth cleaning, and again I found some things I couldn't identify. Handing them to Steve, I asked, "Do we still need these?" "There's only one way to find out," he replied and tossed them into the wastebasket.

--Contributed to "Life In These United States" by Jeanne Lauderdale