Damp!

This morning I read a truly sad story about an old lady who died when a six-foot pile of clutter fell on her while she was looking for the telephone. I have no six-foot stacks of old newspapers and I always know where the telephone is, but I do have a Closet Of Shame and several cupboards full of collected crap, so I get the whole packrat thing. Several years ago I encountered a "system" that claimed to help folks like me who allowed the crap to pile up while they were spending their time in all-encompassing pursuits like teaching a kid to use the potty or bringing home the bacon. The Flylady, as she is known because she once taught fly fishing, sends little helpful e-mails to you practically every fifteen minutes, telling you to do dishes or throw away old dishwasher manuals or hunt down your laundry. Sounds great, right? Well, I have been steadily deleting these e-mails every single day for a couple of years now and it's not because they aren't useful, it's because the useful reminders are accompanied by a number of extraordinarially damp essays about Finally Loving Yourself and "testimonials" from successful Flybabies all over the world, pontificating about how scrubbing the sink makes them so freaking happy all of a sudden! These "testimonials" read as though they were written by the obsessive-compulsive sister of the horny old goat who pens the Penthouse Letters; they all sound vaguely alike and boast the same "now that I love myself everything is bliss" attitude that the essays do. Thank goodness I never became an alcoholic because as valuable as Alcoholics Anonymous is, it's just as damp as The Flylady e-mails and has even more bumper-sticker catchphrases to drive me screaming from the room! I would be much more satisfied with the boot-camp approach taken by several of my former violin teachers. They either made quiet sarcastic comments or screamed their heads off, depending on which Old Country they happened to be from, and basically broke my spirit to build it up again on a weekly basis and I was incredibly motivated by that, more motivated than daily missives telling me to love myself could ever accomplish, apparently. My sister-in-law has a touch of the OCD, but what she has over every soppy, ego-stroking, self-esteem boosting whack-job out there is that she can outline a task and motivate me to get on with it NOW without ever appealing to my sense of self-worth OR calling me vile names AND she doesn't have to even be here for her to do it. I have had telephone conversations with her that resulted in clean toilets in this house! Her attitude is "If folks do it every day, why not you?" She's right!