Housekeeping

I have never been a tidy human being. Never.

You may know the story of the rapist breaking into Maude's and my apartment and the police being shocked at the state of things.

My dad used to tell me that I'd never get married if a man saw how messy my room was. He used this repeatedly, and while I worried from a young age about being marriageable, still I didn't clean up my room.

Fortunately, I have some other good qualities. But the lack of tidiness makes Nick nutso.

So I've started reading that Marie Kondo learn how to tidy and change your life book that everyone has been talking about.

Since I'm in need of help, and people rave about this book, I figured, why not. It will improve my house and my relationship with my husband, and if reccommedations are to be believed, may ultimately change my life.

Although one woman said in her testimonial that Kondo taught her what she didn't need in her life and she divorced her husband.

Huh.

I'm not very far in, but I am going to read it, and I am going to attempt it.

Because every once in a while, I get on a tidying kick, but it never lasts, and the chaos returns. Which is what Kondo says happens until you learn to tidy.

This past spring, for the first time ever, I bought a number of those giant Tupperware boxes for winter clothing.

We crammed all of our coats and scarves and boots and duvets and what-have-you into the boxes. We have a little bit of the basement as storage space, so we had somewhere to put them.

I was opposed to mothballs, but Nick pointed out that we didn't only have to worry about moths; we also had to worry about rodents looking for a nice nesting place.

Uggggghhh.

Mothballs, he said, were the only solution.

So we mothballed the boxes and stacked them in our storage space.

It's been delightfully warm, or warmy-coldy, as Jordan likes to say, in the morning and then warm in the afternoon. But last week it was suddenly more coldy than warmy. So on the weekend we pulled out our coats and boots.

Oh. My. Hell.

We set all of it out in the sunshine and wind for two days. The horrible did not dissipate. I've still got stuff outside.

But! The smell comes in the windows! And every time the kids walk out there they hold their noses and do a cringey dance and say, "Yucky! Yucky!"

I've now washed the washable stuff twice. Still smells wretched.

This, people. This so far is what my brief foray into organization has wrought.

Marie Kondo, take me away!