The Importance of Nesting

For those of you who have not ever seen me, I’m letting you know that I am relatively short. Maybe, at 5’ 5”, I could be considered “average” in height, but most days I feel short. I cannot reach the top shelf in most grocery stores. I cannot reach the top shelf in my own closet without use of a stepstool. I can barely reach the top cupboards in my kitchen even on tiptoe.

Why am I telling you this and what does it have to do with nesting? I’m glad you asked. Let me explain. My family does not understand the concept of nesting and why it is so important to me. As I said, I’m short. Nesting, according to most dictionaries, is defined as “(of similar objects of graduated sizes) able to be placed or stored one inside the other.” Maybe some of you have heard of nesting boxes or nesting dolls.

I utilize the nesting method in my kitchen when it comes to storing plastic containers and their lids. You see, in my kitchen those items are stored in the cupboard over the refrigerator.

This is not my kitchen (Google image)

I can just barely reach the bottom of this cabinet. So, it is important that items be placed there in a safe and orderly manner so that I do not suffer harm when attempting to retrieve a plastic container. The smaller rectangular dishes must be placed inside the larger ones of the same shape and likewise with the square ones. The single box of dishes in turn sits on top of the neatly stacked lids.

My family NEVER puts these items away properly. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to kill me. They just keep stacking lids on top of boxes then more lids then more boxes so that a giant plastic container tower exists in the cupboard. Why is this a problem? Because, as I said, due to my stature, I can only reach the bottom of the shelf, or in this case, the bottom container.

Now, if all of the containers are neatly stacked one inside the other – LIKE THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE – all I need to do is remove the entire box, select the one I want, find its matching lid, then return the neatly nested boxes to the shelf. If they are not nested, and I reach for that bottom container – BECAUSE IT’S THE ONLY ONE I CAN REACH – the odds of that entire stack crashing down on me are pretty darn high.

And yet, my family continues to play the giant plastic container Jenga game. Every time I need a plastic container, I must go get the stepstool, climb up and carefully re-stack the tower into an appropriately nested single container. I’m not sure if the folks at my house who put away the clean dishes are deliberately trying to annoy me or if they’re just lazy. Or, maybe they’re playing their own game of “let’s see how high I can stack this tower before it falls over on Patricia.” Hmmm.

What say you? Do you appreciate having an orderly stack of plastic containers? Are you vertically challenged and suffer your own woes when trying to go about your daily activities? I love my family, but is it too much to ask that they take a few extra seconds to nest the dishes before putting them away? Or do you think they’re having fun at my expense?

I’ve got more exciting things planned for the rest of year that only my newsletter followers will know about. I promise you’ll only get 6 newsletters for the entire year, so I won’t clutter up your inbox. Here’s the link if you want to sign up and be the first to know things: http://bit.ly/JansenSchmidtNewsletter

Word of the Day: Ictus

Fun fact about me: In middle school I was one of the tallest kids in school. What the hell happened?

Original post by Jansen Schmidt, October 2022. Images by Google and giphy.com