Comments on: Stuck-in-the-Mud

By: John

John — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:05:01 +0000

Tessa: Ha! an all too familiar feeling!

I will say that I’ve got a thousand complex, interrelated reasons why I put all the various Object X’s in the house in all the corresponding Location Y’s. (For example, “These bowls go in this cabinet with these dishes, rather than in the one with the matching dishes, because the only place to keep them in the latter is on top of the stack of dishes — making it extremely difficult to remove dishes because you’ve got to keep lifting a tower of bowls.”) It’s probably almost impossible for normal people to understand them all, even if I took the time to explain them, and I’m sure I seem an absolute nut job to both Missus and Stepson.

By: Tessa

Tessa — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:49:13 +0000

Better late than never … for pure, gut-rotting frustration, you can’t beat living with someone for 20 years and he STILL hasn’t worked out where things go! I know, John, in the great scheme of things, it matters not a whit, but I still want to take a blunt instrument to The First Husband when I spend hours looking for a vegetable peeler and eventually find it carefully put away in some utterly illogical place. Gargh!

By: John

John — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:40:09 +0000

S & S: Thanks for dropping by; good to see you here.

Crazy thought: getting everybody’s mother together at one time, in one kitchen, each with her own cutting board. Tell them: Wonderful to see you all here, ladies! On 3, please put your cutting board away, okay? 1… 2…

I bet your housemate was right: given 12 mothers, you’d wind up with a cutting board in each of 12 different locations. Plus 12 bruised egos and, maybe, foreheads. :)

By: Saints and Spinners

Saints and Spinners — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:21:18 +0000

I can relate. I think it’s wise that I live with other people (a husband and a 6 year old daughter) because on my own, I would become so accustomed to having things be just so that a visitor coming in and messing up my system would rattle me more than it does now. As a housemate said when I lived in a brownstone in NYC with 11 other people (!!), “Everyone puts away the cutting board in the place where his or her mother would put it.” We had a floating cutting board….

By: John

John — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:39:24 +0000

marta: That was a great throwaway line from Jules, wasn’t it?

By: marta

marta — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:36:13 +0000

I’m glad I came back and read all the comments just to think about leashing a bumblebee.

By: John

John — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:19:46 +0000

Jules: Probably in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I read somewhere about two types of great mechanics: the kind who have all their tools neatly organized and hanging from pegboard (e.g. wrenches in ascending order of size); and the kind whose work areas follow no discernible pattern.

I don’t know that I’d use the word “great” for myself, especially in conjunction with the word “mechanic.” But I totally identify with the latter kind. When I have to use some sort of system, I can never remember exactly how I’ve filed something. But if I can organize things into vague lumps of similarity, I can usually remember where in a given lump a given thing resides (if that makes sense).

By: Jules

Jules — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:32:21 +0000

Cynth is right about the immunity to this that develops when one has kids, but — having said that — the very hemispheres of my brain still hurt if I walk in a room and things are SCATTERED. I can handle things not being in their usual place, but a superficial mess makes my head ache. (I say “superficial,” because I’m hardly a clean-a-holic. I’d like to just at least LOOK like things are straight, though. Following kids around and cleaning up their messes like this, which I do about three times a day probably, is like trying to leash a bumblebee, but nonethless, I do it.)

I agree with picking the battles. Also: Trying to see the big picture. But, I know: It’s easier said than done!

Good luck.

(And Happy Thanksgiving, I say, as The Husband and I take a break from meal prep and sit down for a moment)

By: John

John — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:55:30 +0000

brudder: I could edit the comment to fix it up but this page really needed something funny. Nyuk nyuk.

The Missus and I have twin self-indulgences as working homeowners: we have a guy mow the lawn every 2-3 weeks, so I don’t have to do it; and we have a maid come in every couple weeks to clean up the bathrooms and counters, vacuum everything thoroughly, and so on, so The Missus doesn’t have to do it.

The maid’s another one. You can almost see the thought process that goes on in her head when she’s holding (say) a Pyrex pitcher which she has just washed: Let me see, now… Does this go HERE, where all the glassware is? or does it go HERE, where the other Pyrex things are? or…? (etc.). We’re constantly finding things weeks later that we’d given up on. The current fugitive is a napkin holder. Plastic, so it’s not like it’s valuable, let alone irreplaceable. Still: crazy-making.

Of course you know I’m dying to find out what the “…” represents. If it is what I think it is, boy, have I got a re-gift for you.

By: s.o.m.e.one's brudder

s.o.m.e.one's brudder — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:35:39 +0000

Oops! me vs. my in the last sentence. Now THAT makes ME REALLY crazy! Bad editing….