I bought a label maker. That should have been the whole story, really, but this smug domestic impulse buy ended in hysteria.
I was innocently scrolling the sales one night – you know, when I should have been going to bed – and somewhere between a collapsible laundry basket and a banana slicer, I found her.
Sleek. Efficient. Organisational. This little beauty was going to sort my life out.
The label maker was in my basket and paid for before I even knew what was happening, a bargain at £20.99 down from £45.00. What a saving!
I was so excited I almost woke my other half to give him the good news. But he looked so peaceful asleep on the sofa, the soft light from the TV reflecting the drool that was pooling in the corner of his mouth.
I let him sleep. I would surprise him with my purchase on the day it was delivered.
He was out when she arrived a few days later. My moment would have to wait. I took the brown cardboard box into the kitchen, opened it with the bread knife, and instantly lost control.
It Started in the Kitchen
After reading the instructions and adding the batteries I had bought in readiness 💁♀️ I looked around the kitchen, then typed in my first word:
“PASTA”
Oh my God this was amazing. In seconds I had a perfectly printed sticky label that I skilfully lined up and stuck to our jar of pasta. Now, everyone would know that this was the pasta jar.
This was going to change everything.
Every single item in my house would now have a home. And everyone would know where that home was, because it would be labelled as such. No more knives in the fork part of the cutlery tray. No more rooting around the top shelf to find three different opened bags of rice.
“RICE”
Soon I had done all of the jars and moved onto the different shelves in the fridge. From here on out, this was going to be the best organised fridge in the North West. Now what else could I do? Of course!
“BREAD”
The bread bin already had the word ‘bread’ on it as part of the design, but it couldn’t hurt to label it as well.
I was drunk on the illusion of control.
The Madness Takes Hold
I moved onto the bathroom next.
“MEDICINE”
MILLY’S SOAPS”
“COTTON BUDS”
The cotton buds were in a disposable tub that would be thrown away when they ran out, but I still labelled them.
When the bathroom was duly covered in labels I tried attacking the kids bedrooms. The Lego and Duplo would have their storage containers formalised and ne’er the twain would get mixed up again.
I practically floated around the entire house labelling anything and everything that could be considered a ‘place’ for something.
I had visions of my new Instagram account, full of beautiful images of my pristine home, as I teach people how to improve their lives with effective labelling. I could call myself @LabelLady, or @TheLabelEnabler, or @LabeledforLife. My followers would adore me. They would share pictures of their label makers and the things they had labelled (mine would be better, obvs) and tell me how I had changed their lives.
I would become a tidy home influencer and be invited onto daytime TV shows. Maybe I could even create and sell my own branded label making machine?
The Comedown
A few hours after I started, I was running out of things to label. I had already crowbarred a few unnecessary ones in there and it was getting a bit silly now.
But the worst thing is that even after all this labelling, the house wasn’t any tidier. It wasn’t any more organised. It just had labels all over it.
The mania was wearing off and I started to feel a bit of a comedown.
It dawned on me that in order for these labels to work, I would actually have to tidy up and organise every single thing in every single room. I would also need my fella and the kids to get on board with what I was trying to achieve here, and since I had been trying to get them to organise their crap ever since forever, a few labels probably weren’t going to change their well established habit of scattering stuff all over the house.
I decided to make a coffee while I pondered this. Maybe I should have done some cleaning or listed a few unused items on Vinted, but I was in need of a sit down after a busy morning’s labelling.
Reality Bites
My fella got home when I was half way through my coffee, and I proudly told him what I had been up to.
After he had finished laughing at me for wasting my time, he very sweetly said he would try to remember to put things back accurately in their rightful place in future. Then he pointed out I had used the wrong spelling for “STATIONARY”. He’s really annoying sometimes…
Oh, and he also told me he wasn’t always sure where I wanted things to go, which of course was the whole point of the label maker. Nevertheless, he informed the kids about the new labelling regime and they all promised to try.
But alas, a few days later there was a pair of slippers on the shoe storage shelf clearly labelled “OUTDOOR SHOES”, and once again I found the Duplo and the Lego in the wrong boxes. Things were falling apart fast, figuratively and literally.
The labels on the food jars had gotten wet and some of the corners were already peeling. A few weeks later and many had fallen off, leaving a sticky residue where once a beautifully neat label had been.
The one on the bin that says “BIN” is still there though, and it makes me laugh every time I open it. It’s probably where my label maker will end up in the not too distant future.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. And if you can’t enjoy yourself labelling a sock drawer then what is even the point of life?