I knew things were going to get a little sticky when I uncovered an ink refill for a printer that I don’t remember owning.  I had cracked open my archive box to find it filled with interesting treasures.

“Archive box” sounds fancy, doesn’t it?

My archive box is a plastic box with lid that contains CDs from programs I’ve installed. What a great idea, I thought when I got it. All my CDs were safely stored in one place and protected from dust and stuff.

I don’t know why the ink refill was in the box. The printer must not have lasted long enough to even earn a refill.

I don’t visit my archive box much but my computer crashed and I was re-installing programs.

But opening that box was like a trip down memory lane but without the warm fuzzy emotions. What I felt was mostly confusion.

For example, I uncovered a  CD with a big black question mark scrawled on the label.

What in the world? Who labels their CD with a question mark?

Me, obviously.

Although nobody accuses me of being well-organized (well, someone did once but that was before they saw my desk), I took some pride on my box as a shred of planning.

Every program CD went into that box after installation.

I am proud to say that there were no 5 ½ inch floppies in there.  Using my system, that’s a miracle.

So I lifted the lid to pull out the programs for re-installation.

I found programs that won’t run on anything newer than Windows 98.  I found programs for pre-schoolers. (Our youngest is 19.)  I found a CD from our classical music days.

I’d like to blame this on the kids but they never open the box.  They just run the programs and don’t mess with the details.

Wonder where they learned that?

I’m sure there’s a major life lesson in all this. Something about staying organized.  Those lessons tend to roll off me like tumbleweeds crossing the prairie.

Sometimes simple is better. So here’s what I learned: I’m cleaning out the box.

That way there’ll be more room for further archiving.