Reverse Sherlocking

After watching Sherlock Holmes for a while, I find that I start doing his "intense scrutiny" of my surroundings trying to come up with similar results. I wander around my kitchen analyzing myself and thinking, "what does this room say about me?"

Of course it's all nonsense. It only works if you already know the person's story, and then find little ways to reveal it. A.C. Doyle used this method to give us a short amount of exposition without being boring, a tremendous feat, and "wow" us with Sherlock's insane genius.

Still it's a fun literary exercise, that I now put to you. Once in a while, walk around your house thinking, "what does this room say about me?" Here's what I came up with after a few minutes. Of course you have to hear it in Cumberbatch's or Brett's voice.

* Cereal boxes of no consistent size or brand, which means you shop the sales, you're either saving money or hard up, judging by the state of your cookware, hard-used and nearly broken, I'd say it was the latter.

*Coffee, same thing, different sizes, different brands, but I notice you have 3 cannisters in your pantry, which makes you an addict. It's a new coffee maker, but a very cheap one, which means you go through a lot of them.You also... spill a lot as you walk, not a morning person, are you?

*There's dust on the lip of the piano cover, but not on the top, which means you leave it up all the times... but there's very little dust build up on the middle keys which means you play regularly. The music books lying around have been there for a few days, so one of you reads music, and someone else doesn't. Judging by the state of the books the difficulty level, and the length of your fingernails, I'd say that you play regularly but you can't read music. Your husband reads, but he doesn't play often.

*Your wedding portrait is resting on the piano under a sheaf of leaves... trouble in paradise? Oh, No! See here, you've got the mollys and the nails and— my word— even a level and a T-sqaure out—all covered in dust too. You obviously mean to hang the painting, but are afraid that you won't like how it's hung and mean to do a proper job of it it you ever get around to it, and perhaps when the children are in school

*Yes you have two children, close in age, a boy and a girl. See you have two of all the gender-neutral toys, hula hoops, art pads, beach buckets (how was your trip to the Outer Banks, by the way?). With smaller children, you have to have two pf everything to avoid rows. Yet you only have one doll and one water pistol, which means different genders. Also the gender neutral items tend to have one primary colour and one pastel—does your daughter actually like pink, or do you just get pink not to confuse it with the boy's.

*You have a million little house-hold tasks which you are waiting on until the house it free during the day, but let's face it, if you were any sort of a go-getter you would have done the dishes this morning. Am I right?