Man with Fully Labeled Garage Opens Every Drawer When Looking for Tools
Tool remains exactly where the label says it is, but is that where he put it?
CLEVELAND—Local homeowner and broke car enthusiast Gary Santos continues to open every drawer in his fully stocked, meticulously labeled garage when searching for tools.
“He’s got this whole system,” said neighbor Tim Salazar. “Every drawer has a label. Every shelf has a number. There’s even a laminated map taped to the wall like he’s running NASA’s mission control. And yet, if he needs a 10mm socket, I’ll watch him open a drawer… then close it and check five more drawers before going back to the first one.”
Santos claims the ritual is necessary for accuracy. “I just don’t trust labels,” he explained. “Sure, the drawer says ‘Pliers,’ but what if I used that drawer for drill bits one day when I was in a hurry? What if the tool teleported? What if my wife moved it? You can’t take chances.”
The labeling project began two years ago, following a weekend spent searching for an Allen key “somewhere between Friday night and Sunday dinner.” Santos invested in a label maker, storage cabinets, and enough plastic bins to qualify for bulk pricing. His garage quickly became the envy of neighborhood dads, all of whom assumed such organization meant he knew exactly where his tools were.
“Labels are a myth,” said Salazar. “They’re not meant to actually help find anything faster. They just help you open the wrong drawers with more confidence.”
Friends report that Santos’s process involves scanning the entire garage, opening drawers in no particular order, muttering about how “this doesn’t make sense,” and eventually finding the tool exactly where the label says it would be.
Psychologists say this behavior is not uncommon. “It’s called compulsive verification,” explained Dr. Amanda Rhodes. “The labels are meant to provide certainty, but car enthusiasts can’t accept that level of trust. It’s why they still wiggle their shifter eighteen times after putting it in neutral.”
Santos insists the system works. “I’ve never not found a tool,” he said completely seriously. “Sometimes it takes a few extra steps, but that’s just part of the process. The labels are there to narrow it down… to, you know, all the drawers you see here, here, and… here.”
As for the 10mm socket that started his search last weekend, Santos did eventually find it—under his car. Unfortunately, by then, the project he was working on had been abandoned, and he was already halfway through reorganizing his bolt drawer.