Chopsticks

The thing about inhabiting a small dwelling, in our case, a flat, is that you have very little storage space. You're forced to think about storage space. The middle classes don't with their town houses they were helped to buy by Location, Location, Education (Why do the presenters have to help people with budgets? They've already got money why can't they suffer the ennui of looking for somewhere to live with no money?) They have loft spaces they can store trinkets they can take to Antiques Roadshow and say oh, I don't suppose it's worth very much, it's just been gathering dust in our attic, knowing full well that there's every chance their crockery belongs to a Ming Dynasty.

In the smaller dwelling we have to have a conversation with our missus about 'we don't really need that, do we? It's only taking up space.' I have a pair of chopsticks in the kitchen drawer. That's a good start because if they were in a cabinet in the lounge, they'd be immediately behaving like they're out of place. That's where you shove elastic bands, buttons and coins of a currency that has now become defunct. Why do you keep chopsticks? asks your partner. We're going to discuss this because by losing them we will gain space equal to the volume of Chinese chopsticks. 'You don't even like Chinese food', she says. 'I didn't say that'. 'You did. You always say you don't like Chinese food'. 'I didn't say I didn't like Chinese food. I just don't like the way they cook it'.

Chopsticks are always handy (and 'handiness' is the quality you want to bestow an object that's threatened with eviction) when you step in dog shit and it squelches and compacts in the tread of your trainers. Then you get rid of them or at least you should.