Column: Savagemama

Notes From a Neat Freak

By Jennifer Savage, 3-06-08

A few weeks ago, I got my Virgo on. Somewhere in the description of what we Virgos are supposed to do and not do is something about being a perfectionist. In my life this translates (in the most obvious way) as being a neat freak.

So on this particular day, I took Eliza to daycare and set about cleaning out the room that will be hers once we finish a small remodel to the space. I organized clothes into plastic bins, I packed books based on size into cardboard boxes, I folded bedding, I recycled magazines. I loved the satisfactory clink of climbing gear as I packed it away and how neatly our mountain of backpacks looked on top of the wall of storage containers I’d built in the garage by the time I was finished. It took me all day and as I stood back to look this tidy little moment of perfection I fought the urge to take a picture. I made a mental note to threaten Seth with divorce if even thought about touching my work of art.

“The crampons, ice axes and climbing rack are all right there in that bin on top,” I told him later as I proudly showed off my day’s work. “So don’t go digging for them!”

David Sedaris once wrote about visiting his sister and that the upheaval of her apartment made the homosexual in him want to scrub and clean until his hands bled. I often think I have a little gay man inside of me pointing out the spots on the tub that won’t come clean, bleaching the sink, mopping sap off the kitchen floor. I like to think David and I could live together in a spotless place somewhere with neatly folded towels and perfectly organized cupboards. Then I remember that he’s a smoker and we’re both neurotic writers and my little neat-freak fantasy evaporates.

I have a friend who once described herself saying “I’m one of those people who can’t write my paper until my room is clean” and that’s when I knew she was one of my people. In another tidy-Tina fantasy I sometimes let myself indulge in, she and I own one of those businesses where we go into other people’s lives to help them get organized. We don’t help them find a mate or figure out why have issues with their mother but we do get their sock drawer in order. We organize their closets by article, color and season. We even organize their recycling. I like to think into everyone’s life a little obsessive-compulsive disorder should fall and we’d be happy to share the wealth. Then I remember we both have small children and this fantasy, too, evaporates leaving nothing but the lingering smell of Simple Green.

I think I have these fantasies because the creatures I live with don’t seem to share my compulsion for the neat.

Seth appreciates my little outbursts like the one I had the other day. He even understands them in a rare way. He’s a carpenter, he likes it when things fit together. He’s also a climber and if there is any place in the world to be nit-picky, I suppose it is on a rock wall somewhere. But sometimes Anal-retentive Carpenter, as we like to call his alter ego, likes to stay on the job site and the climber, who when I put a piece of gear out of order on his climbing rack just so I can hear him say “yeah, um, that’s not where that goes” in his joking professorly voice, is not the man who enters our house each night. Instead in walks Sir Stacks-a-lot Quackenbush and behind him, our daughter, Mess-maker Quackenbush. (This is one of our names for her. Another is her superhero name, Sex-Stopper Quackenbush but that’s another story for another time.)

Sir Stacks-a-lot is a collector of small things – drill bits, screws, teeny, tiny pieces of paper that he likes to leave in little piles all over the house. This man stacks books and magazines so high that they threaten to take over our bedroom. This is the man, who when looking in the diaper bag for Eliza’s butt paste, resembles a puppy digging for a bone. Behind him is a wake of diapers, toys and clothes as he fumbles with this big, thick hands into a place where I have often told him is off limits.

“I operate out of that bag,” I tell him. “And after you’ve been in there, things are everywhere. I can’t find anything! Just ask me if you want something out of there.”

He usually mumbles something about not being able to find anything in the bag and leaves the big pile of excess stuff on the floor.

Our daughter, I’m afraid, looks exactly like me but was made in his image.

Mess-maker usually starts her day by spreading a blueberry/oatmeal/yogurt mixture all over her high-chair and herself. After I clean her up, she pulls books off the shelf, coats off the rack and leaves a trail of baby dolls and puzzle pieces wherever she goes.

Sigh.

When I get down off of my Virgo-everything-has-a-place-high-horse I see Seth’s little piles of paper and Eliza’s puzzle trail and even my pile of clothes on the bathroom floor as signs that we are living this life and together.

But I can still fantasize about my and David’s apartment, organizing other people’s lives and I can take heart when Seth builds a receipt collection system with labeled envelopes for our kitchen or Eliza cleans the coffee table with a baby wipe.

I think the Virgo in me will survive the stacks and messes that come with the people I live with because at the end of the day when I’m putting away Eliza’s shoes or hanging up Seth’s coat, there’s not much else I’d rather do.

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