Confidential to the splendidly aromatic woman in the ¾ length fuzzy green coat who sat down next to me at the sushi bar recently.
The place settings at each seat are there for territorial delineation as much as they are for eating convenience. You don’t have to sit so close. I can also suggest the narrow bar is no place to rest your oversized Birken bag. I appreciate that you can’t wear enough clothes to give you the requisite 45 pockets you need to haul all your stuff, but if you don’t know what’s in there, inventory would best be done somewhere else. I get the distinct feeling however, you’re not so much looking for your Moleskin yearly planner as you are pretending to look for your Moleskin yearly planner so you can read my text messages.
I’ll spare you the effort. Here’s the transcript of my digital conversation. Go ahead, knock yourself out.
Shecky: Do marriages end over clutter? My inner neat freak is heading for a nervous breakdown.
Me: All the time. That’s why the freebie section on Craigslist is so popular. Hubby goes fishing, wifey purges. Do you watch A&E? Did you see my wife on Hoarders?
Shecky: OMG, I need to send Mike to the lake. Or have a day off mid-week when he’s at work because HOLY SH*T he has too much crap. Maybe he and your wife are related? Funny they ended up with non-hoarding spouses.
Me: When I first met my bride she was driving a Mazda pickup truck. In the back was a milk crate with five bricks in it. After a year of hearing them slam into the side of the truck every time she turned, braked or accelerated, I finally asked her what she planned on doing with them. She said they used to hold up planks of wood that was a bookcase in an apartment she lived in two years previous. I immediately pulled over and left them on the side of the road.
Shecky: LOL!!! That’s a great story.
Shecky: Mike has an enormous collection of 4 x 4 magazines that he has to keep “for reference”. Like he can’t find all that on the internet.
Me: I’ve had to designate specific areas of the house off-limits. My wife has certain cupboards and closets she can fill to her heart’s content, but if I’m knocked unconscious by falling candlesticks / Christmas fruit cake tins of sewing notions and pinking shears / high school yearbooks / old VCR’s, while trying to extricate the vacuum cleaner, then it calls into question the very notion of till death or serious injury do us part.
Shecky: I tried that but just ended up being the crazy yelling lady. I’m pulling on the work gloves this weekend and loading the truck for a trip to the dump. I love him, but his crap has gotta go!
Me: My wife’s getting a pre-paid storage locker for her birthday.
Me: All kidding aside Shecky, as much as my wife may be predisposed to holding on to more stuff than we have room for, on any given day I can root through every cupboard and drawer, search every shelf and storage bin, rummage through every coat pocket in every closet, and come up empty looking for chocolate. But if I ask her on the odd chance she maybe has a morsel left of something I’ve brought home recently, she’ll smile tenderly, knowing full well she’s got me where she wants me. Of course she has something squirreled away. She’ll send me out into the yard for five minutes while she retrieves it from god-doesn’t-want-me-to-know-where, and revel in the satisfaction that comes with knowing she’ll eventually have purpose for everything she saves.
Confidential to you, my surreptitiously snooping yet ambrosial sashimi eating seatmate, If I were a gambling man, which I am, I’d bet a bag of Bacon in Eggs that I find teeth-whitening chewing gum, a pearl handled emery board, an unopened package of panty hose, half the lipstick aisle from Sephora and a ream of lottery tickets at the bottom of your bag, but nary a piece of what matters most.
Marc Lieberman
Mink Chocolates Inc.,
Mink A Chocolate Cafe Ltd.
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