Getting organized

The Organization Movement has hit our household. Joe is seduced by California Closets and similar organization systems, although we are more in the market for a closetless system, as we have very few closets in our old rowhouse.

The problem with storage systems, I tell him, is that after you have established a system, you have to keep it going. You have to return items to their designated storage place and keep them organized. No one has yet invented a system that organizes items by itself.

Although Joe is working on it, if not overtly. Deep in his being he feels there must be a way to get his clothes to fold themselves and march up to the bedroom and settle into the baskets where they reside. And a way for the rest of his shirts to miraculously rearrange themselves after he paws through them to find his favorite one. So far the only system he has found that will do this is his wife. Unfortunately, this system comes with a complaint button that becomes somewhat annoying, and he has not figured out how to turn it off.

One day Joe said something about feeling he was messy. I looked at him suspiciously. "Do you mean 'Messies'? Are you reading the Messies Manual? Or listening to it on CD or something?"

He admitted, sheepishly, to the latter.

"Oh, that system will suck you right in, pal," I said. "You be careful with that one. The Messies will have you alphabetizing our soup cans."

He returned the Messies Manual to the library the next day, much to my relief. I am all for keeping an orderly house, but there is orderly and then there is obsessive.

One day he called me into the bedroom. "Here, hold this," he said, handing me an empty hanger. He handed me several more and instructed me to spread out my fingers and hold them all on one hand, staggered vertically. Then he carefully placed a pair of his pants on each one. "See, if we could hang our clothes vertically, instead of horizontally...." he trailed off, looking from the stack of hangers on my hand to the closet.

"Honey," I said, as gently as I could, "this is Advanced Organization. We need to master Basic Organization first."

He looked at me. "You're right," he said, and jammed the hangers and pants back into the closet. As he left the room, several fell onto the floor.

I sighed. It may be a while before we earn our Organization Diplomas.