If You Know Your Character, You Know...

         Something that's stuck in my brain for decades was a nugget that one writer said.  Something like, If you really know the character you've created, you know what they have in their pocket.

          I was thinking of a variation of that last night, when watching The Closer on television.

          The main character opened up her desk drawer and it was filled-to-the-brim with candy.  (She was rooting around for the last chocolate bar...Definitely a kindred spirit!)  She is a high-ranking police official; one of her detectives, when he saw the contents of the drawer, was visibly surprised.

          Nowadays, some of us are stuck at work for such long periods of time, our desk becomes our home away from home.  Perhaps what we keep in our desk is more "telling" than what we have in our pockets.  (And sometimes our desk at home is our place of work.  That would add another layer of meaning, if we examined the inside of the drawers.)

           What can you put in a drawer that would make for an intriguing character?  What drawer contents would reveal important character flaws?

           Please share.  Writers are wonderful thieves...

photo by Winnie_nevrothwen