Cupboards

Everywhere I go, I leave a trail of open cupboards in my wake. The peculiar thing is that there are few things that irritate me quite so much as a cupboard door left open.

This was the backdrop of my life for many years – in fact, for as many years as I have been opening cupboards – and I never thought in a very focused way about it until about a week ago.

The thing is, when I open a cupboard, even as I am in the process of turning away from it, I am already starting to get irked at the fact that it has been left open. So why do I do it?

                                                                   

“Why do you do it?” I would ask myself, as I turned away. “If you know it is going to bother you, then why don’t you just turn back and close it?”

“No,” I would reply to myself. “Because… No.” And I would go back to whatever mission I was on.

So one day, as an experiment, I did actually close a cupboard. It pained me to do so – I clenched my jaw, I furrowed my brow, and I tensed my throat as I did so. And it was at that point that I discovered why I always leave them open.

 It made the most bone-jarringas it swung to.

  

On several occasions since then, I have replicated the experiment. (They do say it is good scientific practice.) And every time, it has produced the same result. The noise of the door banging shut, no matter how gently, causes greater disturbance to me than any open cupboard ever could.

Oddly, this aural discomfort applies only to cupboards. I have shared workspaces with people who beg and entreat passersby to shut the door with care as they enter or exit, and I have promptly exited, slamming the door shut behind me without even realising I was doing so. I have been severely remonstrated by proud car owners for my violent closing of their car doors as I get in or out. And I believe there can be very few people in existence who ever close a microwave as crashingly and clatteringly as I routinely do.

So why the cupboards? The short answer is: I have no idea. In the meantime, I continue to leave them open, or, out of consideration for those who might find it galling, ajar.