When I delete a middle clip, the adjacent clips do NOT snap together. Please help!

There seems to be different functionality on clip snapping depending on where clips are located. In FCP, for instance, if the clips are on the story line (the gray part of the timeline) and I hit "delete" on a middle clip, the adjacent clips DO snap together; however, if my clips aren't on the gray part of the timeline and I hit delete, a gap is left.

I hit "delete" and here's the gap (also, notice how there is a gray rectangular area under these 3 clips. . .if the clips are in THAT area and i delete the middle clip, they snap together.)

Now I move these 3 clips near the gray rectangular area, and watch what happens.

The clips snap together.

On the video im editing seen here:

the only clips i can get to snap while deleting a middle clip are those located in the bottom left of the above screen shot. Which makes me think. . .if there was a way to drag the upper clips to the gray rectangular box, I'm sure the snapping feature would work. . .yet, when I try to do this, I get this:

So yeah, I think i'm about to lose my f*cking mind. I don't understand why this has to be so incredibly difficult : (.

ANy help is appreciated