My parents house is full of stuff. It is brimming. Every room is stacked with old magazines, books and chachkas —  trinkets, never-used glasses and teapots. Old papers of every sort.

As part of this propensity for piling, my mother likes to put large empty ceramic bowls all over the house. Once a bowl is set down on a table- or countertop, it makes a tear in space, creating a vacuum that gets immediately filled with all sorts of the above-mentioned old papers/trinkets/never-used teapots.

My brother get furious at the existence of these bowls. His theory — which I back — is that the useless stuff would not accumulate if the bowl hadn’t created the space for accumulation. Simply: placing a bowl creates a vacuum in space. Refrain from placing the bowls, and  avoid an accumulation of useless objects.

To bring this post from the realm of private domestic space…