I think I may have mentioned that I have a bit of an OCD streak. I do things like clean-up my entire house before going on vacation… in part so I can come home to a tranquil, clean house. And in part because there is some little part of me that wants to know everything was in it’s place when my house burned down. I know, crazy time.
I’m convinced it’s genetic. I inherited this little quirk from Granddad. He’s constantly tidying and for decades we have fondly nicknamed him Señor Tidy. I found it particularly amusing when my mom shared with me that apparently my brother gets noticeably grumpy when his house is messy, too. I don’t know how Grandma gets the outlaws to tattle on their significant others, but this is one of Grandma’s most notable strengths.
I do admit, if you want to put me into a particularly irritated mood, lock me in James’ home office slash shoe closet slash Ebay distribution center. Crazy time.
On this subject, Grandma recently reminded me of the time when Jacob was still two years old. Angela was babysitting and Jacob went on an audible tirade, complete with finger pointing at her neighbor’s yard sale, “That house is SO messy!”
Now to be clear, we were also recently asked to describe Jake and whether he is organized or all over the place. Given we haven’t seen his Wild Kratts lunchbox since the second week of kinder and have lost count on missing navy blue hoodies, we had to go with option two. That said, Jake appreciates a nice clutter-free environment. He was really the only one to appreciate my recent Spring Break pantry cleaning and reorganization project. Quite complimentary, I must say. He visited Grandma’s and asked her why her cupboards were so messy… his cupboards are “clean and organized.” Grandma still seems to be stewing over this little anecdote— Jake must have delivered it in his most unfiltered, Grandma-esque way?
Over Spring Break, I also cleaned the garage… again. I am sick and tired of my role as Chief Garage Cleaner as I’ve found exactly zero people (except maybe Señor Tidy) appreciate my hard work and there is no effort to help maintain the improved state. I mean, I almost died last time.
Despite all that, I spent another day cleaning-up the garage so as to make room for our fleet of riding toys. And just after I complete my project, and tell all the boys they aren’t allowed to enter the garage without my EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION, James shuts the door, which we’ve been raising and lowering manually for several years, and SPROING: the cables break, springs fly, and the garage door is stuck in the down position— perfectly preserving and protecting the beautiful organized bliss I have just created. Plus my pallet of leftover landscaping stone is still blocking the “human entrance.”
I live happily for several weeks knowing the garage has been preserved in an orderly state. But, last week our new garage door was installed with two fancy clickers that work. And the new door is perfectly silent so the Mess Makers can sneak in there utterly undetected.
On Saturday I got this text from James while I was with the boys at swimming lessons:
Garage door openers?
Hello?