First they binge, then we purge

As I sit here watching Bucket of Blood on TCM, I find myself reflecting on the day’s activities and find myself feeling damn smug.    Porque’ Observant, you may ask.  Why have you puffed yourself up to the size of larger-than-life Jack O’Lantern?  

 Because today I purged.

Ken has left town for the weekend and I spent my day reorganizing his crap.  His boxes and boxes of man-crap that were moved into the house over a year ago and have been hogging up space ever since.  Since my son will be moving back home in December, his old room needs to have the old kiddie wallpaper stripped and be repainted (or rewallpapered, depending on the condition of the plaster underneath).  His room is the room Ken moved all his thousands of boxes into 15 months ago, and that is where they’ve sat. 

So today I opened them up and reorganized them.  What was once 10 boxes is now 5.  And they all fit into the hall closet.

But the really exciting part was finding his paperwork.  The paperwork he could not bring himself to throw away when he was packing up to move in.  Yes, I’m talking about 10 years worth of phone bills and credit card statements and auto repair bills (for cars he no longer owns), Ten years of cancelled checks and bank statements and investment statements.  I dumped them all into two large trash bags.  Without his consent.

I was half terrified and half enraptured with myself!

And then I panicked.  What would happen when I told him?  Would this be the one thing he’d not be able to forgive me?   As a compromise, I did not put the trash bags in the trashcan; I left them in the house.  As a gesture of respect, I kept and reorganized his tax paperwork (even though he’ll never need those 1995 tax statements).   

A few hours later he called to say he’d gotten to his destination.  “Honey, I did something real bad” I said in a rush, hoping he wasn’t really listening.  “I got really really busy cleaning stuff up and I needed some room in the closet so I threw away your old receipts and stuff.   But I kept the trash bags for you and if you want I’ll put it all back.  Okay?”    I waited for him to respond.  Would this brazen act of OCDness send him over the edge? 

“Aw, it’s OK” he said.  “That stuff needed to be thrown out anyway.” 

It did?  Since when?  In the conversation I remembered, he explicitly nixed my idea of tossing the phone bills from 1999.  Ditto with the insurance statements from 2003.  I remember him practically snatching his precious files from my careless little hands and holding them close to his chest.  “No I’m keeping these” he said firmly.   The 8 expando files moved into my house, where they sat untouched for 15 months.  

This news that he’d finally “let go” of his paperwork indicated real progress!  

I’m holding out hope that my hoarder-in-residence will see the light and embrace the concept of minimalism I find so comforting.  Maybe someday we’ll go down to the basement together, where the rest of his really important stuff resides, and do some purging as a couple.  And perhaps, while we purge, we can listen to the cassette tape of Hot Christian Favorites I found in his other stuff today.   We’ll groove to the sounds of Change Your Ways while I give him a knowing smile, appreciating the double meaning of the tune, given the circumstances. 

Well, I can dream, can’t I?

I hate that!

There many little things that upset/annoy/niggle me. I won’t list them all otherwise I’ll still be here at midnight, so I’ll only list the main ones:

Crumbs. Why, why oh why can people not wipe them up??? Rocket science it is not people!

Throwing a towel over the rail rather than folding and placing it. Don’t they know the edges NEED to be level?

Not rinsing a teaspoon and/or coffee cup, and putting in the drainer. Perhaps I should make them lick it clean once it goes all sticky and feral?

Dropping dirty clothes on the floor. They’d be in for a shock in my house when I tell them I wash in the laundry not the bedroom wouldn’t they? Particularly when they find they have no clean clothes!

Rings on the coffee table due to lack of using a coaster. Again, maybe I should make them lick it clean once it’s hard and crusty?

Leaving the keyboard drawer out after using the computer. Don’t they realise a person could crack a bone on that sharp edge? I’m here to tell you if I crack one of my bones because of your inability to roll a drawer in, I’m cracking more than one of yours, that I promise you!!

Not putting the X Box controller back where they found it. If they can manage to find it in there, surely it’s quite a simple exercise to reverse the process. Again, rocket science it is not!

Now you may ask why it is, these have been singled out?

Because in the last week (with the exception of the dirty washing one) each and every one of them has occurred in this house. Some have been MSO, others have been visitors.

The world is going mad and I’m a close 2nd I tell you! Perhaps a full moon is near? I’m off to check the calendar

Party poooper?

So I survived a birthday slumber party with several eight and nine year old little girls over this past weekend. Let me just say first off, I quit smoking in January and have rarely craved a shmoke. I dearly wanted one at 6AM this morning as they woke me up screaming and running through the house.

I knew that the girls would be in and out, in and out all day/night long so I didn’t make the house spotless before they came over. Yeah, it was clean. But, it coulda been cleaner, and I wasn’t too afraid knowing that my floors weren’t mopped, and the child’s room wasn’t spotless, and so on. I knew that once they left, I’d have the opportunity to fix and clean everything.

And I didn’t set any rules. No, I didn’t want to throw a bunch of rules at the girls, and expect them to actually listen. I didn’t want to sound like an old, biddy so I let them do what they wanted. Oh my freaking gosh . . . a mad house, I was in a freaking mad house.

I was literally going, OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG .. ! Oh – My – FREAKING – Gosh! Look at my floor! Look at my couch! Look at my kitchen! Oh my poor poor kitchen!!! Don’t worry cabinets, they won’t slam you shut much longer. No, they’re parents will pick them up soon. Oh, ‘fridgerator, don’t cry. The spilled milk on your shelves can be cleaned up. Oh there, there .. let me get it!

I cringed. And I cussed under my breath. I held my breath. I looked away, and covered my eyes. I peeked through my fingers and saw them pillow fighting with my couch cushions, and I was like ohhhh myyyy freeeeaking goshhhh!!

I finally got them all to settle down and eat some breakfast. Cake and ice cream for breakfast, all around! I sugared them up and sent their little butts home. And then I got to cleaning! And I cleaned. And I smiled. And I loved every minute of it.

Vacuum woes

I try to vacuum my house every day, so I was quite heartbroken when my vacuum decided to crap out on me. It was a very reliable vacuum, too. I’ve had it almost 7 years and it’s never given me an ounce of trouble. But gradually, it just started going downhill, not wanting to suck and clean properlly. I was not going to have that, either!

So it farted out, which meant I had a decision to make since buying a new vacuum is not really in my budget .. electricity for the month or a new vacuum. Which one – which one. It was an incredibly hard decision to make, but in the end, I made the ultimate decision of getting a vacuum. I just gotta figure out how I’m going to make use of it in the dark *sigh*

I need a life

Actual conversation with my mother today.

Mom: So what kind of fun and excitement did you get into last night? [Saturday night]

Me: Oh, not much. I cleaned and polished my washer and dryer.

Mom: Really.

Me: Yup. And the facing of the dishwasher.

Mom: Oooh, exciting.

Me: Yup. I know it. I’m gangsta to the core.

Mom: You need a life.

Me: *Makes a face behind her back*

She, BTW, went on a date and spent four and a half hours at the Burger King, sipping sodas. And I’m the one that needs a life.

:: :: :: Red :: :: ::

Erks me long time

Cupboards and drawers must always stay closed. I don’t want to see them open even a fraction of an inch. I don’t want them ajar . at . all.

And I don’t want to see anything poking out of them. No clothes, no towels, nothing. I like them clean looking so that means that whatever is in the cupboards and/or drawers, must be completely inside. No poking out. Ever.

:: :: :: Red :: :: ::

Cleanliness rocks my socks

 

I don’t trust any kind of cleaner that I can’t smell. Take the new Clorox Anywhere spray cleaner mumbojumbo. It’s like water. Water. It has no smell. No color. It’s like spraying water everywhere, and cleaning it off. How do you know for sure that it’s actually clean if you can’t smell the cleanliness?

I like the smell of cleaners. Wood polish, yes please! Windex, over here! Bleach, hells yes. Give me some bleach, and I’m a happy camper. I mop with bleach water. Always. Twice a week. No fail.

A few weeks ago, the daughter came home from being away at her dad’s for a week, and I had just finished mopping the kitchen and bathrooms.

Her: *sniffs around* What’s that smell, Ma?

Me: I just mopped.

Her: Yeah, but what’s the smell? *sniffs more*

Me: It’s bleach.

Her: *big sniffff* Mmm, Mama, it smells soooo goood!

Me: Yes, that’s called cleanliness.

Her: My dad’s house doesn’t smell like cleanliness.

Me: *my heart bursted wide open, smiling from within* No, huh?

Her: No, that’s why I like living here.

Me: Good answer.

:: :: :: Red :: :: ::

When OCD meets chaos

What happens when a well organized clean freak female hooks up with a messy, can’t-bear-to-throw-anything-away man? Can this relationship survive?

I’ve developed a selective blindness when it comes to spaces solely occupied or used by Ken – his car, his workbench, his dresser, his desk. These are areas I just simply skip over when performing my obsessive housecleaning rituals, preferring to leave everything the way I found it for fear that if I started straightening and throwing away, it could go on for hours. Or days.

Also, Ken would kill me. He knows where everything is in these messes of his. Or at least he thinks he does.

“Honey, don’t we have an electric pencil sharpener around here somewhere? he asked last Thursday evening. “Sure we do” I answered, gazing with practiced dismay at the piles and piles of flotsum and jetsum littering his desk. “It’s here somewhere.” “Are you sure you didn’t throw it away” he asked, his tone clearly indicating that’s exactly what he thought I did with it.

Ken has a fast and firm belief that if something can’t be found in our house, it’s because I threw it away. In his opinion, I throw entirely too much stuff away, including actual trash.

“Where’s that empty box?” Ken will ask, rooting around the house.
“What box?”
“You know, the Amazon box I got my bike books in last year”
“I threw it away 11 months ago” I answer.
“Oh” Ken will answer, obviously sad and disppointed in my lack of foresight that an empty box will be needed within the next year.

Last summer, after we’d dated for 6 years, Ken moved into my house. While I was helping him pack up his apartment, I made a discovery that still haunts me to this day: Ken has a “problem” throwing things away. Drawers and closets were filled with empty boxes, saved plastic yogurt containers, empty margerine tubs, broken small appliances – you name it, he saved it. His storage space was filled practically to overflowing with nothing but pieces of wood – plywood, 2×4s, oak, fiberboard – old tires, broken bicycles and 50 years worth of paperwork.

After filling trashbag after trashbag with the treasures my little prairie boy felt he couldn’t part with, I turned to him and asked the question that had begun to haunt me: “Honey, I need to know something and I need for you to tell me the truth.”

“Sure babe, what’s on your mind?”

“Ken, are you a hoarder? I mean, if you are it’s OK, it’s just that I just can’t live with you if you are. I have to have order in my house and I cannot – repeat, cannot – have hoarding in my house.”

“Well, if you’re asking if I have a problem with throwing this stuff away, I don’t.” he said. To Ken’s credit, he took my implication that he might have a well-hidden mental disorder quite well. We got him moved in to my house – sans empty boxes and scrap lumber – where we’ve lived in cohabitating bliss for the past 14 months. I have politely ignored his assigned areas, where he is allowed to pile his “treasures” to his heart’s content, until last Thursday night’s “where’s the electric pencil sharpener” conversation.

“Are you sure it’s not on your desk somewhere?” I asked Ken.
“No, it couldn’t be here” he answered.
“Are you sure?” I said, making a sweeping gesture with my hand over the messiness stacked willy nilly.

To prove my point that, not only could an electric pencil sharpener be well-hidden in his mess, but that there could possibly an entire case of unshapened pencils in there, here is a picture of the desk:

***Warning: View discretion advised. If you suffer from a severe form of organizational and/or cleanliness OCD, viewing the following picture may cause permanent damage!***

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Note that there is NO working space left on the desk, whatsoever. When I mentioned this fact to Ken on Friday night, he (like the good soldier that he is) decided it could use a good straightening. As I looked on, clapping my little hands with glee, Ken put his papers in order, and (this is the best part), threw things away.

Three hours later, the job was complete. Now there workspace on his desk – which probably didn’t do a thing for Ken, but made me feel all warm and cozy inside! Just take a look at this “after” picture. and while you’re at it, check out the object indicated by the green arrow:

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…the mystery of the missing electric pencil sharpener has been solved!