One day, thanks to millions of dollars in funding and many dedicated scientists with no real cause to champion, the world will finally discover a cure for clutter.
That day can come none to soon for me.
Clutter has a way of swarming me, attracted to some scent that I can neither wash away nor mask. So, hard as I try, it always comes back — and worse than before.
My desk at home? I haven’t seen wood in more than a year. Instead, it’s a collection of newspapers, pay stubs, house plans, bills, service cancellations, and most importantly, the note I wrote to myself about a great column idea I had for this week.
Oh, well. Teacher, it was eaten by my pet Clutter.
What is it about us that we have to, like some kind of modern security blanket, surround ourselves with this scourge? Has there been clutter as far back as man can remember. Or is the difference that once upon a time it was called by its scientific name — “crap” — and quickly discarded.
The typical American, I will bet money, has on average 2,200 cheap plastic pens stuffed into a pen caddie on his or her desk. I will wager again that out of that 2,200, exactly two work. Why do we keep them? What is our fascination? Do we expect one day to extract oil from them? Why can’t we go anywhere without spotting a free pen and thinking, “Oooh, I better take one. I’m running low.”
Running low! You could build a house out of all those pens.
If pen companies had a teaspoon of sense, they would stop filling them with ink and pocket millions in savings from trade shows and conferences alone. If only I had gone into corporate marketing and sales.
At home I have pencils that have sat so long that the erasers are petrified. One pencil says it is made of $7.33 in recycled money. Since I was always told you never throw away money, and you SURE don’t grind it up in a pencil sharpener, it is now doomed to sit in the pen holder until it is one day bequeathed to a grandchild.
My desk at work is no better, and a good deal worse because it’s bigger. People always tell me a messy desk is a sign of a man who is too busy to clean it. I appreciate them saying this, and also that they are lying clean through their teeth. Really they’re thinking, “Jeez, this guy’s a slob. How did he get an office with windows?”
I think of this because I grew so embarrassed of my office recently that I — GASP! — cleaned it. Turns out that it’s not a landfill after all, and actually quite nice. I even discovered I have a computer!
Too long I had apologized for the state of affairs in there. People would come to meetings and I would sound like a stewardess running through a pre-flight emergency checklist before we commenced.
“In the event of total desk collapse,” I would say, “oxygen masks will drop down from the ceiling. Should we be caught up in an avalanche, use a swimming-like motion to keep yourself above the papers and aim for the nearest emergency exit. Now please put on your crash helmet and flotation device so we can begin, and remember to always please speak softly.”
I want to end my dependence on clutter, but sometimes I think it’s as much a part of me as an arm or a leg. It can be comforting like being surrounded by a giant fort. Should someone walk in and ask if I have something filed, I can point anywhere and say, “Yep, it’s under “L” for lost.”
They will turn, walk away and never ask for anything else. In life, you have to take the good with the bad. And as long as there are free pens and credit card bills, there will always be clutter.