America, it is time to come out of the closet.

No, I’m not talking about sexuality — that’s so July. I’m talking about real closets: the kind crammed with clothes you don’t wear, gifts you don’t use and boxes you have no intention of opening before Arnold’s third term. America’s closets hold the dirty, dark secret of who we are.

Insatiable, irrational idol worshippers.

Idols? Sure — in the shape of ThighMasters and baskets, size 6 shorts and hockey sticks. Clearly we worship these things, because we dare not let them go. They are essential to our notion of who we are (skinny!) and what we do. (Exercise! Decorate! Play! Even though 99 percent of the time all we really do is work and watch TV.) Our junk holds such power over us that Americans spend $1 billion a year building newer, bigger closets.

Considering the subject’s emotional charge, the Style Network could have a huge hit when it debuts the show “Clean House” next month. Imagine “Queer Eye for the Crawl Space” or “Extreme Makeover” performing lipo on a pile of logoed tote bags.

In “Clean House,” a team of no particular sexual persuasion declutters the homes and closets of folks eager for an overhaul but trembling at the thought of tossing their Earth shoes.

“Some need a hug, some need tough love,” says Niecy Nash, the host. “One guy had 75 T-shirts, and I said, ‘What do you use all of these for?’ and he said, ‘Well, I might need them.”‘

Other closets contained bags of half-eaten food — evidence of quick and halfhearted room cleanups. And, of course, there were the homemade paintings and sagging luggage. Why do we let this stuff pile up?

Because we can.

“The colonists had no closets,” says John Stilgoe, a professor of environmental studies at Harvard. “They had chests.” These were practical because you could move them around and use them as seats. But they didn’t hold that much and were hard to paw through.

Eventually, chests developed top drawers similar to the ones in a Sears tool chest. Over time, the drawers multiplied and someone smart started making chests upright. Hence, a chest of drawers.

Meanwhile, the settlers also were building shelves near their chimneys where they could store food that would go bad if it froze. These shelves evolved into kitchen cabinets. It wasn’t until the 1880s that closets began appearing in bedrooms.

These were necessary because, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, clothes were suddenly being mass-produced, cheaply. And since they still are, closets just keep getting bigger. And fuller.

After witnessing the results, “Clean House” host Nash determined to sell off her own detritus at a garage sale.

“I had a little motorized convertible, the kind for maybe ages 2 to 5, that I didn’t need any more,” she says. “Well, my mother, who purchased that car, had an absolute fit. ‘After all the money I paid? Are you kidding?’ My son is 11, he can’t get his left leg in there. But. …” Reluctantly Nash removed the tag that said, “For sale.”

Moms. Memories. Junk. The forces that rule our lives.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist for the New York Daily News. Her e-mail address is lskenazy@edit.nydailynews.com.