Against Kitchen Cabinets ("manuscript" version)

Go into anybody's home. Look in the kitchen.
Overhead cabinets with doors on them.
You can't see inside. What's in which? You'll have to open them to find
out. But why? Are we ashamed of having dishes? Do we want to
forget that we have groceries?

OK. Suppose it's your own home.
You know what goes in which cabinets.
But you've got your hands full of groceries or dishes that you want to put
away. Oops, too bad! There's a door in the way! You'll have to put
something down first. Maybe the countertops are all covered
and you have to bend over and put stuff on the floor. Maybe you
try to fit your load onto the counter and knock something down.
Is there some reason you shouldn't be able to just put the stuff into
the cabinet in the first place?
And why should it take both hands?

Go into any restaurant. Look in the kitchen. Shelves. Lots of them.
You can see what's on which shelf and it's all right there ready to be
used. These guys are
pros. They admit they're in a kitchen and they're ready to do something
about it.

Apparently it's some esthetic thing: doors are believed to
look better than the stuff they prevent us from seeing and
reaching. Well, de gustibus non disputandum. To
me they look stupid.

There's always a slim chance that I'm missing something. I didn't know
until recently what the doors on my closets were for. They were
badly hung, and as they inevitably jammed, I'd take them off and
put them in the basement, out of the way, instead of ``fixing'' them
by putting them back in the way. I found out a couple years
later they did have a purpose. They're for keeping out cats.

So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe. But
sooner or later, deny it though you will,
you're going to hit your head on one of those
damn doors and it's really going to hurt.
Don't say I didn't tell you so.