I wasn't born with a stack of papers strewn around my feet. That's what my mother says anyway. But she was on painkillers at the time, so what does she know?
Regardless of how I was born, it is undeniable that I'm messy now. I'm like a prisoner carrying around a ball and chain on my ankle, except my ball is more like a wad of unpaid bills stuck together with bits of outdated post-it notes.
Neat people do not understand the strain of being messy. They think we disorganized people clutter our living space on purpose. But I tell you right now I cannot help myself. When I take my shoes off, it is my instinct to fling them. It is only by the strongest methods of concentration that I am able to set my shoes together on a mat in a "shoe-friendly zone."
You can imagine how I suffer from being messy. I lose things. Important things like invitations, paychecks, and even candy bars. Losing chocolate should be listed as the eighth deadly sin.
I remember when I was sixteen; I lost my wallet in my bedroom. Now you have to understand that my bedroom was basically a large box full of dirty clothes and crumpled papers. There was a bed stuffed in a corner, and every night I had to sift through the debris so that I could get some rest. At some point, I must have set my wallet down on top of a pile of papers. The wallet would have been in plain view. Then I went to watch TV, and when I came back to the bedroom the wallet was gone.
My theory is that my pile of papers acted like a whirlpool. As soon as I had my back turned, the papers sucked my wallet down towards the carpet monster waiting in the darkness below. It took me nearly two hours to find and rescue my wallet. And all the while I was making promises to God like, "Please, Sir, if you help me find my wallet, I will NEVER be messy again."
But I didn't keep my promise. For many years afterwards, I treated all of my bedrooms like they were glorified junk drawers.
Eventually I started using a hamper for dirty clothes. And I don't put papers on my bedroom floor anymore. Now I scatter them across my desk. I have seven piles of papers in no particular order sitting next to my computer. I would feel ashamed, but I truly believe this is not my fault. I am a victim of genetics.
DNA makes me think I've lost my glasses when they are, in fact, hiding in my glasses' case. Think of all my relatives who must have suffered before me. Was there a great uncle who couldn't keep his chickens out of the outhouse? Maybe a long lost great grandmother in Germany couldn't keep her weiner schnitzel separated from her bratwurst and everyone hated her? I feel sorry for these bumbling Platz ancestors. Being a slob is not easy.
And don't think I haven't tried to change. I make lists of things clean. I bustle around my apartment for an hour every few weeks trying to banish the vicious papers. I pray to all neatness-giving Gods, "Please make me organized."
But it all ends in chaos. I watch helplessly as my hand cream jumps onto my gift certificates. I plead for my camera to stop throttling my calculator. And I yelp when my Harry Potter book makes off with my package of M&Ms. It's a cruel world.
But on the other hand it's…well…it's got some good points…uh…? Okay. No. It's just bad. I'm a horrible person and I deserve to live for the rest of my life in a pile of discarded kitchen equipment.
Well, that is all. If you'll excuse me, I have some shoes that need flinging in the other room.
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