When one door opens ... well, at my house, it stays open.

Front or back. Screen or hardwood. Sliding or folding. Cabinet or closet. The pantry or the dresser. Micro-wave or dishwasher. It doesn't matter, somebody is always leaving a door open. And I'm the only one in the house now.

Until I was on my own, I never realized how negligent I was in leaving a little opening behind me everywhere I went. Only now, when I come home late at night and see the kitchen looking like it's been ransacked by a burglar or see the dresser drawers opened at half a dozen different angles, do I fully realize the extent of my problem.

No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get on top of it. You wouldn't think it would be so hard to break this habit. We're not talking drugs or gambling, after all. All I need is a mental note to self: When you open a door, close it. (Or maybe a color-coded Post-it note.)

Yet, there are so many opportunities to fail. Think about how many different doors you and I open (and you close) every day.

Get a glass? Leave the cupboard door ajar. Grab a can of beer from the fridge? It doesn't close all the way. Look for the church key in the utensil drawer? It stays open. Toss the pull top in the garbage? That's the wooden door under the sink. Walk out onto the lanai to drink said beer? That's two more doors you have to pass through. Put the empty glass in the dishwasher? The door stops about 30 degrees short of fully closed.

Who knew there were so many doors in one little 994-square-foot home? Trust me, you never notice them unless they are left open.

Sometimes, I'll make a concerted effort to close all the doors at once, walking from room to room to restore order in the house. My personal record is 14 different drawers and doors left open at one time, including the medicine cabinet and the sliding paper tray near the top of the desk. By the time I get to one end of the house, I turn around and find new doors open, or maybe the same ones that I didn't close all the way.

The other day, I even found the produce compartment open inside the refrigerator, which meant that the big refrigerator door was ajar in a way that it almost brushed an open cabinet, where my mother's cast iron frying pan is stored.

I realize now that for all my adult life, my wife must have followed me everywhere, always there to shut a door behind me, with rarely a complaint, except when she'd get up in the middle of the night and bang her shin on the T-shirt drawer I left open just before hopping into bed. In retrospect, it was an unrecognized luxury to have had someone silently closing all the thousands of doors I left open during 29 years of marriage.

Just one more reason why I miss her.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.