Containing Myself
I lost my Container Store virginity last week. I’d heard the hype so I walked around an outdoor shopping mall in north Dallas for forty minutes waiting for it to open on July 4th. Sure, I was also avoiding my family, but that’s another story. Inside the store I had to pry myself away from magnetic doohickies that stick to your locker door – holding lipgloss, concealer sticks, and other essentials for surviving high school. Despite the fact that I’m not in high school and have no locker of any kind, I actually had to tell myself-repeatedly-that I had no use for such things. This is how intoxicating the Container Store and any other place of its ilk is for me. I’m mesmerized in certain sections of Staples, dumbfounded in the closet area of Lowes, and stupefied among the office supplies at Target.
I am a consumer of home organization porn. I want to believe–I do believe–that life is better when its contents are properly stowed and labeled, preferably in a clear typeface. Getting organized causes me to simplify, to cull all those unnecessary objects from my life, or at least contain them in space-efficient decorative bins. The process works for ideas too. Just check my hard drive, my internet spaces, the 3-ring binders that grace my not-very-orgnized shelves, the post-its on the white board I’m using to plot my novel.
A friend of mine has a pantry that has to be at least 100 square feet. Her custom built home is not some ridiculous mansion and she has no servants to fetch the Sunday linens; the woman simply values organization. There is a place for every can of mushroom soup and tiered platter in that miracle of modern kitchenry. To be that organized, equipped…. well one could probably survive the apocalypse in a place like that – if one had enough adjustable shelving and plastic boxes.
Sometimes I think it’s a joke, all this planning and organizing – just one more way to procrastinate. But then the loan officer calls about my refinance. I reach into the drawer next to my computer and pull out the file labeled “refi” and pull out the document she’s requesting before she finishes her sentence. Sickening, isn’t it?
by Lela Davidson on July 9, 2010
in Suburban Bliss, Susie Homemaker
Rest assured, there is a special container in hell for really organized people.
Well organized people live in a world of their own–unlike the rest of us. I understand that place is a lot like a Big Box Store.
I was this person you speak of once. Had my own professional organizing business and everything. I was so organized I helped other people do it too! Wrote eBooks about it. Had all my shit labeled and sorted! Now, the baby…yeah…the baby…no more neatly lined shelves. One day I’ll get back there my friend, one day. BTW, adore the Container Store and would work there if there was one by me!
John, that container had better sport a printed label.
Amber, you are my idol. Sometimes I let stuff get messy just so I can organize it. I’m sick like that.
OOOOOH when I was younger I used to pull EVERYTHING out of my closet, drawers, bins…just to put it back together. I was also the kid that moved their room around weekly. I still do this every once in a while. It feels damn good!