The trouble with organizing your life — sock drawer, desk, garage, glove compartment, toy box, endocrine system — is you’re constantly faced with having to decide whether to throw something away, knowing that everything you do throw away is something you “might need one of these days.”
This is a law of nature, and it makes Trash Cowards of us all.
The scenario:
New year. Fresh start. You are Mary Tyler Moore, and you’ve decided you’re gonna make it after all. (Too old of a reference?) You are so ready to better yourself that you are the proverbial ball of fire, so in tune with making a fresh start that you are a human can of Lysol.
So you decide to organize your life. You decide to do this because:
A: It is a new year and you’d rather resolve to do this than to exercise three times a week to “get in shape,” or …
B: You know National
Get Organized Week is in October, and you figure if you start in January, you might be ready to get organized once autumn gets here.
You and everyone who knows you know it’s a shot in the dark, but a guy’s got to try, right? We’ve got to try to get organized even if everyone’s like me, so helplessly in disarray that you’re trying to hire someone to take the Christmas tree down for you. (I have the blinds in that room closed and am secretly hoping it will take itself down.)
There is a lot of stuff to organize. You opt to organize your desk at work first because the other day you looked and couldn’t find it. Seems a logical place to start … IF you find it.
The first thing you do is determine what to throw away. This is hard because Every Single Item cluttering your desk and drawers is something you “might need one of these days.” This is why you kept it in the first place. You quickly realize that everything on and in your desk is either clear-cut trash —
Wendy’s wrapper, empty Pepsi bottle, Christmas in the Sky pass from 2006, petrified Certs, congealed eyeliner, corpse, etc.—or something you “might need.”
The old People magazine published the week of Johnny Carson’s last show? You might need it.
That special section the Memphis newspaper ran on Elvis 27 years after his untimely passing? Might need it.
That check stub and key to your old desk and copy of the paper in Hope, Ark., the day Clinton became President? Might need all that stuff.
Suddenly, the thought of getting organized isn’t fun anymore. At all. The decision-making process has whittled you down to the half a man you knew you always were. You don’t have room to organize any of your New Stuff because you can’t throw away any of the Old Stuff you “might need one of these days.”
And you are already thinking about the closet at home. It will be the same sad story. You might need that old sweatshirt, the half-towel, that mildewed, ripped and dry-rotting T-shirt.
Demoralization. Your tidy plans have gone to you-know-where on a fast train. And you are helpless to stop it.
So, you do the only thing you can do. You grab the near-empty can of Lysol and spray it all over the piles on your desk. Save some for the closet at home. You might be disorganized, but at least you’re clean.
Oh, and you keep the empty Lysol can. Sure do. Might need it one of these days.
