O my God, thank You for the promise of eternal life. For a future perfect home — including the perfect linen closet — that You’re designing for me. OMG, I’ll even be able to find the pillowcases?!
O Lord, my sweet mother-in-law could actually find and use the many lists she made. Me? I just found one I made three years ago in a shoe. Yet she loved me like a daughter. OMG, I’m thankful she’s now with You, maybe making perfect lists in Heaven. But how I miss her!
Maybe a COVID-delayed optometric appointment had prevented me from seeing my office’s squalor. After all, I’d told a fellow pedestrian I was sorry for not maintaining a safe distance — only to realize I’d apologized to a mailbox.
Legally blind, I also had hurdled growing piles in my office to reach the printer.
What finally inspired my cleaning turnabout? A check lost in the chaos.
Rummaging through rubble, I did recover it.
I saw carpet. It’s blue — who would have known? I even (drumroll) cleared my desk.
Hubby thought he’d entered the wrong house.
Of course, “clean” is a relative term. I know people who vacuum their garages — and probably their streets. For us, not only is “clean” defined differently, it belongs in separate languages.
For me, “clean” means piles have been boxed. It also implies my bookshelves no longer threaten to collapse, as (sniff!), I gave books to Goodwill. Three.
I follow a never-fail formula for dealing with UFOs — Unidentified Funky Objects. If it doesn’t erupt, tick or grow tentacles, I toss it into a closet or drawer.
Instead of pushing neatnik perfection, my unique organization system accumulates points for varying degrees of success.
I can shut a drawer or closet in which all items are current and in order. (100 points)
Hey, it might happen. In Heaven.
Highly unlikely, but possible: I can shut the drawer or closet containing items less than 30 years old. (50 points)
I have actually scored these below:
Some claim I should receive zero for that final effort. But I tried. Doesn’t that count for something?
Using my system, I met my cleaning goal.
Then came Christmas and a longed-for visit from my son and his young family. Bushels of Christmas gifts, boxes, wrappings and holiday survival chocolate migrated to my office, as did anything fragile. Heaps of trash, attracted to new clutter as if magnetized, also appeared. So did the books I thought I’d given to Goodwill.
Now, the unthinkable lodges in my brain: if I don’t want to lose more checks, I should clean again.
Twice within three months? I hyperventilate.
Imagine how many points you’ll earn, I tell myself.
The system really does work.
If my total reaches 10 points, I won’t have to clean the office for another year.
And I won’t have to vacuum my street until 2099.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you define clean?
Scientists declare the universe is expanding. If my poundage provides ample support for this hypothesis, why doesn’t my closet?
Getting dressed has become a religious experience. Every morning I fall on my knees before opening the closet door, because one tiny shift on my shelves sets off shock waves that could lead to global disaster.
Still, I do not pose the ultimate threat. Rather, people who alphabetize socks pose a menace to freedom and the American way. Their closets resemble well-organized mausoleums, with shoes and sweaters residing in little plastic caskets. They file shirts, dresses and pants according to color, fiber content and button count.
Worse yet, their clothes fit. No sign of the fat-jean wardrobe every normal woman cherishes. No rack of size three dresses to provide the self-delusion necessary for good mental health. These disturbed personalities are desperately in need of therapy, medication and grandchildren with Popsicles.
They also demonstrate a pathological lack of conscience as their clothes age. How can someone be so callous as to condemn a loyal pair of black pants that has stood with them through years of Christmas parties, church services and funeral wakes to an unknown fate?
Sometimes, though, I long for the freedom of college days, when my wardrobe consisted of two beloved pairs of jeans, two T-shirts and a granny dress I wore when my future in-laws came to town.
After marriage, however, my expandable waistline stretched my outfits into three categories: pre-prego, prego and post-prego.
By my children’s adolescence, not even an underweight moth could edge in. I never would have suffered from closet claustrophobia if my daughters had done the decent thing and raided my closet during their teen years.
Instead, they plundered their father’s. We didn’t realize he had become a retro fashion icon until one Sunday before church as I made a routine check of the “teen corner.” Our younger daughter was wearing a purple-striped surfer shirt.
“Steve, she’s wearing that shirt I gave you for your 18th birthday.”
He cocked an eye. “Um, her friend’s wearing one of my shirts, too.”
It wasn’t fair. If Steve had worn ruffles during the 1960s like every other self-respecting hippie, the girls never would have touched his stuff. His closet would have looked as bad as mine.
Eventually, our children all married young and left town. I have no idea why.
I visited their quiet rooms and shed tears at the sight of neatly made beds and unnaturally bare floors.
And three beautiful, empty closets.
Which, years later, now overflow — and getting dressed each morning has once more become a religious experience. …
Does opening your closets inspire fervent prayer as well?
I have discovered that God designs writers with His usual love for diversity. However, when it comes to the organizational aspects of our profession, we fall into two basic groups. With a scratch-my-head bow to our Father (I never will understand why He created people the way He did), and an apology to Jeff Foxworthy, I suggest the following:
You might be a piler if:
Yes, you are a piler.
On the other hand, you might be a filer if:
Yes, God knows where your membership belongs. And mine. So do our spouses or significant others. And our friends.
Your turn. Fill in the blank: you might be a filer/piler if .