So. I have a series of little plastic drawer thingies (you can see a picture here if you scroll down) where I store fragrance samples that are waiting to be tried. Once I take a sample out of its drawer, it hangs around on my desk until I’ve given it a few tries. Then I have a large plastic cart with drawers (you can see a picture here) that holds fragrance samples I’ve already tried but want to keep. Every so often I try something a few times and still can’t make up my mind about it either way. I don’t give up easy; some of my very favorite perfumes were not love at first sight. So those samples go into what I think of as “the purgatory basket”, and there they languish, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, yes, sometimes for years.

Recently the purgatory basket started to overflow. I thought about getting a bigger basket — that tells you most of what you need to know about my organizational style — but decided last week to make a concerted effort to clear an inch or so off the top. Most of the samples ended up in the “give away” box, a few got stored away in the “to keep” drawers, but a few sternly resisted categorization for the umpteenth time…

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