This is the Matron's living room. You can see by Gleaming Floor and Wide Open Space that she is the tidy sort. Indeed, not only is she tidy, she suffers from a case of Incurable Clutter Brain Suck.
This means that if her environs are messy and disorganized, her brain is too. She simply cannot function. Clutter and clump make her crabby and disoriented. Definitely not in the mood for love.
At the moment, not only is Incurable Clutter Brain Suck rendering her lovely self nearly psychotic, so is the dratted bacterial infection in her arm, which is not getting better. Just tonight, she switched to antibiotic #2, allowing the Hypochondrical Lobe masquerading as her brain to completely take over.
Nobody has more bookmarked links to "flesh eating bacteria." She'd bet good money.
Friends. She is in Fine Form. Thank God-Buddha-Oprah-Allah-Universe you do not live with her. She is not nearly so much fun in person.
Today--in such a tangled state -- she finally turned a corner over JUNK ON THE FLOOR. You see, the Matron spends many many of her precious minutes moving items from one spot in the house to another.
It is that simple: move an item from one spot to the place it belongs.
Strker's backpack is still where he left it when he came home from school. Ditto for his shoes--oh, and Scarlett's and Merrick's. John has had the same insurance bill on the kitchen counter for ten days. Snack? Drop it when you're done. Take Satan's Familiar on a walk? Just let go of the leash when you walk in the door. Phone? Forget about it. Far from nestling in their receivers, handsets are scattered throughout the house. The Matron cannot remember the last time someone replaced the scissors in her office after they used it.
Moving items from where they are left to where they belong.
Today, the Matron snapped. She is documenting the dysfunction (okay hers or theirs?)!
See this scrap of paper?
The Matron has no idea where it came from or who dropped it. But she does know this: she first noticed it at the bottom of the basement stairs on Friday, September 4 -- one week ago today.
Since then, nobody has touched it. The paper remains. Nobody has vacuumed, swept or otherwise concerned themselves with this small, unimportant -- but COMPLETELY visible --scrap of paper.Also on Friday, September 4, one week ago today, the Matron observed this Coke Zero can taking refuge underneath the living room radiator.
She decided not to touch it. Not ever. Armageddon will be upon her and she'll be all "don't mess with that can." Just to see if that can could possibly outlive her, untouched. This experiment started one week ago. The can endures. She figures someone other than her tidy self walks by that can 12 million times a day. Nothing. John? Stryker? Don't you see that can!? Is it not KILLING you to put it in the recycling?!
Finally, also on September 4 (did she mention that is ONE WEEK AGO) she also noticed this barrette dropped in front of the basement bathroom door. You must actually take note of this item in order to not step on its edges and hurt the tender foot.
Still, on Day Seven, as the Lord rested, so do her husband and children. All the time.
These three items remain on the floor, where they fell, at least one week ago today. She will update you next Friday to see if someone else besides HER moves items from where they fall to where they belong -- or, if her husband is reading this blog.
22 comments:
Admit it, you would have been so disappointed today if all those things that you so carefully took photos of last week (or at least noticed - perhaps the pictures were taken today?) were gone. When you noticed them last week you were already writing today's post in your mind.
And if we ever do meet in person, it will have to be out. In a public place. Because there are scraps of paper and other oddities on the floor in my house. Have been for weeks. Months, even. Oh well.
What if you put a ten dollar bill down next to each of the offending objects and just see what happens/
I like Rima's idea. But I'm cheap -- I'd put a quarter, or maybe a dollar bill. (Yeah, we are just haggling over the price now...)
Three items? Three? Oh, honey, I laugh at your so-called clutter. No one in this house sees anything. The floor can be covered with stuff and none of it would be moved, if it weren't for yours truly. Ask me about my teen daughter and the used Kleenex on her bedroom floor - go ahead, ask me...
OMIGOD. DYing over the comments. I am totally going to put money on the floor and I will be crushed, just crushed, if someone notices this stuff and ruins my blog thread!
There is a stuffed chicken sitting on the top of our stairs that has been there since my daughter came home from school. I AM NOT MOVING IT. Stay strong sister.
I live by myself, so whatever lies around is my own mess and I have been known to step over it quite a few times before I felt ready to pick it up. The timing has to be right, you see. There is a day to pick up messes, and there is a day not to.
There is not enough film in my digital camera to document all the stuff that other members of the household drop and never pick up. But it doesn't bother me (drives my husband nuts).
RE the money experiment: to do it properly you need a control. Put money next to SOME of the objects, but not others.
If I lay money down next to all the things my sons leave around the house, they'd pick up the money and still leave the stuff there.
I am training myself to remind them to pick up their crap, instead of doing it myself. The silent treatment doesn't work with them -- the stuff just sits there. For years.
This is a game that has no winners. Only a loser and it is you. No one will ever notice it (truly, THEY WILL NOT NOTICE) and therefore no one will pick it up.
Eventually, your head will explode. It is the way it goes. The ending is always the same.
I am dying to hear about the money experiment. I find that I put things that are theirs on the stairs so that they will pick them up on way up the stairs. Rarely happens. I yell up the stairs, "I did not put these things here to decorate the stairs!".
If the offending objects move, I grant you permission to have a party. By yourself, of course.
Oh...Rima is on to something, Matron.
I have some of the same afflictions over here.
I earn $1.00 for every pair of boxers that I pick up off the bathroom floor. I also have a "legal fund" for the $ I earn picking things up that friends could potentially slip and fall on and sue us over. NOTHING really helps the situation as much as my anxiety medication. A visiting relative once called me a "retriever" after observing me doing my "pick up exercises". I often try to convince myself that those exercises are like sit ups but more productive since I'm actually cleaning while doing them.
Ah, nothing like a little vacuuming: for us, it's the tiny Polly Pocket stuff or other items that either get vacuumed up or get given away. We give them a timeframe to clean up failing which the item (which I discretely choose) gets taken away indefinately. Amazing how quickly they clean under duress!
I used to be crazy lady OCD about clutter and cleanliness, now I only have a moderate germophobia. (That's because I see some of the disgusting things people do with their hands)
The point? Much more relaxed now, and my loved ones can breathe around me. Sometimes.
The Matron is trying the money thing.
Have you ever noticed that the stuff that we may move, lose, or leave laying about never bugs us as much as the stuff other people move, lose, or leave laying about? I have total tolerance for my own sh*t and none for others.
That's it? Three little items in a week? Over here there are at least three items a day. If it's a weekend, it can be three items per hour. And I only have on kid. My only recourse is to get the broom and sweep it all into her room periodically.
Try the money thing, but glue the money to the fallen items.
Tried this myself. It was a dirty kleenex stuck between the wall and a piece of furniture. Two years later, I cracked and disposed of the kleenex and all its companions. Good luck to you though.
Put the money under the items in question... visible, but requiring the item to be moved for collection. My bet is that the money will go and the item will not.
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