Nature Abhors a Vacuum

An empty table is a junk magnet. We have a game table in our office and I try mightily to keep it clear in the unlikely event we actually want to use it for playing games. Most of the time, we play games on the coffee table in the living room since this is more height-friendly for our grandchildren, who prefer sitting on the floor anyway. When I was a boy, we had a formal dining room in one house that was never used. We passed through the room every time we wanted to go out the front door. We didn't go out the front door often. Instead we went out the back door, which meant traveling through my parents' bedroom. My parents designed the house. Poorly. Anyway, in the unused formal dining room was a dining table, the nicest piece of furniture in the house. The dining table got used three times a year: Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the year, it was like the game table. It attracted junk. Anything you didn't have a place for otherwise wound up on the dining room table. Three times a year we had to clean everything off of it. The rest of the year it was a junk magnet.