Last weekend, a very unfortunate thing occurred. I cleaned needlessly.

I won’t get into why I felt I had to clean, or what made it needless. Such subjects shall be relegated to so much grist for the rumor mill. And, even so, needless cleaning is not a giant tragedy in and of itself. After all, even when one cleans needlessly, one is left with a clean apartment, correct?

The answer: Sort of.

While I was either sleeping or out of the house sometime last weekend, the shelf in my bedroom closet — piled high with boxes overzealously stacked to finally get them off my bedroom floor, where they had been since I moved in back in the fall of 2000 — collapsed, taking with it the wooden hanging rod and all of my clothes, including one relatively expensive suit, and very nearly taking out the sliding doors, which are primarily composed of full length mirrors.

I am unsure how much time elapsed between the shelf collapsing and my noticing it. Expeditions into my closet in the summertime have traditionally been limited at best, as I keep most of the clothes that I actually wear in a dresser outside the closet. No, the only reason I noticed the shelf had collapsed was that one of the mirrored sliding doors was bulging outwards in the middle. And the only reason I noticed that was that I, too, was bulging outwards in the middle.

Perhaps you’ve never had a full length mirror in your bedroom and think me peculiar, but sure enough, one day this past week, before or after a shower, I stood naked in my bedroom, admiring myself in the mirror. “Yes,” I thought. “I am a god.”

I turned to the side and noticed that my belly was sticking out about a foot further than normal. Moreover, I seemed to be looking slightly downwards at my reflection, and I looked shorter than usual. Sure enough, that’s when I saw that the closet door was bulging outwards. A tiny peek through the closet door revealed evidence of a shelf collapse.

I honestly did not think I put anything particularly heavy on that shelf. It was mostly empty boxes. The only items of notable weight were a tub of Legos and a box of old notebooks from college. But, as I discovered, the shelf was no more than thin particle board which was poorly supported, and was destined to snap in the event that significant weight were placed upon it.

For a few more days I chose to ignore the bulging closet, leaving the contained clutter to fester as I considered various ways to remedy the situation. Today, however, I finally succumbed to my irrational fear of the mirrored closet doors shattering and scattering glass fragments everywhere, including all over my cat and my eyes. I pried open the doors and began to shovel the contents out onto my only recently-uncluttered bedroom floor, soon realizing I would end up with a bigger mess than what I started with.

I then headed to my local Home Depot, intending to purchase a wooden rod and shelf, spending a negligible amount of money in the process. I would have needed a specially cut shelf, as the back of my closet has irregular dimensions. However, I never even made it to the lumber. Instead, I bought this ridiculous modular closet/shelving unit that will probably not fit in my closet at all, let alone allow me to more efficiently organize my belongings. And as I am reluctant to learn that I am right about such matters, surprise! The shelving unit remains unassembled, and the contents of my closet remain scattered on my bedroom floor.

And my belly remains sticking out a foot further than normal.