A Year of Blogging: May 17, 2011

May 17 is 'Pack Rat' Day. Ahhh.. a day created specifically for Erich. Yes, I live with a pack rat. It's a real challenge for me. I like things neat and orderly. He leaves things where he drops them, and lets stuff just pile up. It's frustrating! Erich's Mom is a pack rat. They both seem to keep all kinds of things- but the thing they keep the most of is books. His mom was a librarian at the city library for many years, retiring last year. Whenever the library took books out of circulation, she brought home boxes full. If people had books they didn't want any more, either Joan or Erich took them. When she had a knee replacement last year, the family (Erich, his sister, her 10 year old son, and Erich's dad) spent a week trying to clean out the converted garage so there was enough room to get all of the equipment in for Joan's recovery. They boxed things up and put them in the garage. She still doesn't know what is in all the boxes. I can really sympathize with Erich's dad, who is a neat freak. When Joan goes away on a trip, he throws out some of her stuff. Then she comes home and gets mad. It doesn't stop him- he does it every time she's gone for more than a couple of days. It's a hilarious ritual that gets repeated a couple of times a year. I don't throw out Erich's stuff. Sometimes, I just take the pile that covers half the coffee table, and pile it all into a neat stack. I do that when I'm cleaning the living room. I have learned to give him notice. For example, I might tell him on Thursday 'I'm thinking of cleaning this weekend'. That's his cue to pick it up if he wants to know where it is. He gets upset when I arrange everything in a nice neat pile. I do throw some things out- envelopes he's opened and just left sitting on the table, old grocery lists, things like that. Things that a normal person would throw out when they were done with it. He claims he can't find things when they are in order. Really??? He's misplaced at least two passports. The few bills he doesn't pay online he is always frantically looking for. He misplaces his books. His clothes. He misplaces quite a lot of stuff for someone who claims he knows where everything is in the mess! Our rule is 'keep the mess upstairs'. I do not get upset if he keeps it confined to his two rooms. I even give him a little break and let it spill into the hallway between his two rooms when we don't have company. When we have company, he knows the mess has to be contained in his two rooms, and the doors have to be able to shut. I do get upset when his disregard spills over into the downstairs, and I'm tripping over three pairs of sneakers (all the exact same), a book bag full of nursing books, computer parts, etc. I have a little revenge on him tonight. Our dishwasher went on the fritz a couple of months ago. While it was running one night, it smelled like it was on fire. We think some of the stuck on food got onto the element and burned. But we haven't used the dishwasher since then. Erich doesn't think we should. I have so many problems with my hands that washing the dishes is not easy for me. So it's his chore. He seems to think dishes should only be washed once a day (which again, irritates me. I don't think you need to wash them every time you use one, but if the dishpan starts filling up, wash them. Don't just pile the dirty dishes in the other part of the sink or on the counter). He washed last night's dishes this afternoon. After dinner, I had a spurt of energy. I cleaned out a couple of things in the frig, cut up things for a tossed salad, hard boiled some eggs, and made a macaroni salad. And then my energy ran out. So I've left a pile of dishes in the sink for the resident pack rat. Maybe he'll find out it's not so pleasant to have things pile up, and change his ways. Yeah, right. After nearly 11 years, I know better than that. But I do get the slightest bit of satisfaction knowing I created a mess and left it for him!