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I have a “pile” on my kitchen counter. You know exactly what it looks like because you have one too. (I’d be willing to bet my third born child that you do.) Our piles are big, messy collections of random “stuff”. Stuff that we are not quite ready to throw out, or simply don’t want to lose. In addition to important documents, my pile often includes junk mail, empty candy wrappers, expired coupons and dead batteries. It’s your basic kitchen counter flotsam.
Messy piles are NOT, as some might insinuate, the result of mom’s laziness or incompetence. Only science can fully explain how a “pile” is born. Einstein's got my back on this...
Einstein’s very clever “Theory of Relativity” (sort of) implies that individual items left on a counter will gravitate towards each other, forming the nascent beginnings of a “pile.” The pile will continue to expand (like the universe) ad infinitum. Meanwhile the items that join the pile will remain bound together in “pile” stasis until a greater force is exerted upon them, such as when I finally FLIP OUT at the mess, frighten the kids by acting all crazy, and start burning stuff in the fire-pit.
I offer you three truisms about “piles”. See if you agree…
1. Pretty much anything left on a kitchen counter will eventually be absorbed into a “pile”, including food and pets.
2. The “pile” never shrinks of its own volition, it only grows.
3. Men will never search through the “pile” for something they have lost, no matter how important it may be to them. This drives all wives crazy, without exception.
Eventually these “piles” grow too big to ignore. When the pile becomes an amorphous blob, consuming children and threatening access to the coffee maker, you’ve GOT to do something. Coffee is THAT important. Without coffee there would be extreme dysfunction in my home. I bet even Einstein drank 3 cups a day.
Since I’m almost never in the mood to spend a half a day sorting, filing, tossing and recycling, I usually just put my overgrown pile somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Speaking from experience, I DO NOT recommend this approach to home organization.
Moving the pile is never optimal, even if you are desperately trying to get ready for a really important dinner party. The emancipation and joy you feel will be brief, because moving the pile invariably results in your gas or electricity being cut off and the inability to purchase movies on demand. Utility companies, especially cable, are notoriously cranky about being paid on time.
There is hope, however. I think the piles in my house will finally begin to shrink when the kids leave home and the sheer volume of paper stuff entering my house is reduced. But I don’t think we’ll ever be completely free of “the pile” until we successfully deforest the planet - and eliminate the means to make paper.
So hand me a chain saw, or make everyone go paperless. I’m way too tired to file the pile. And Einstein, disappointingly, offers only theories, not solutions.
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