She knew that it is very foolish.

I have a walk-in closet. Actually, if I’m honest, I have two. When we moved in, I looked at the two closets in the master bedroom and immediately began wheedling. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea for you to keep your clothes in a different room? You get up earlier than me, and this way you can get dressed without waking me up. Plus, I  have so many clothes and shoes because you like to see me wearing different things, so really my need for extra closet space is kind of your fault. So don’t you think it would be fair for me have both these closets?” The end result surprised no one: I have two closets.

Anyway, lately I’ve taken to leaving the bedroom curtains open. I never used to do this because the windows look out onto the street, but I have a plant in there now and it likes to live, so I keep the curtains open to give it light. Enter the walk-in closet — literally. It makes a great dressing room for times when I am wearing, say, my lying-in-the-yard outfit and need to quickly change to my going-to-the-store outfit. I just hop into my closet, turn on the light, shut the door and change. No one sees me from the street and my plant doesn’t die.

Yesterday I was wearing PJs when Gene suggested going for a walk, so I dashed into my closet and shut the door and changed. And turned the knob, which spun around and around uselessly while the door remained firmly shut. I banged on the door and yelled for Gene. I had to yell for a disturbing length of time before he heard me, even though he was upstairs. Or maybe it wasn’t actually so long, but even forty seconds trapped in a closet feels like a long, long time. I do not like to think what would happen if I’d shut myself in while he was at work.

All of which goes to show that there is simply no point in putting a big, obvious lesson in your children’s book. As many times as I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was growing up, I still never learned to believe in Jesus and I am still quite a moron about shutting myself in a wardrobe. Children’s authors, take note and don’t waste your time.

“She immediately stepped into the wardrobe…leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe.”

-C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

These are my closets (photo from before we moved in). The one on the left leads to Narnia, but unfortunately I trapped myself in the one on the right.