Aunt Erma's Cope Book (9 page)

“Mother! I'll thank you not to come in here and criticize the way I keep my house. If you must know, every time I come in I check the refrigerator for messages. I read them and throw them away.”

She moved in closer to the refrigerator and removed a card that was yellow and faded. “Did you overlook this reminder to take your Edsel in for service? It says here they'll give you a full tank of gas and a set of dishes if you act before June 30, 1959.”

tidying up your life

I WAS LATE for the Tidying Up Your Life class.

But it wasn't my fault. The roast was frozen when I put it in the oven at five, there wasn't a clock in the house with a time that matched, and two traffic lights were against me.

Luckily, the class was being held at the high school near me. I eased into a seat by the door and looked around. There were a dozen or so adults who had gathered to put some system back into their lives.

The woman across the aisle smiled and whispered “I'm Ruth.” Her socks didn't match.

A man behind me asked if I had a pencil he could borrow. Another man asked to be excused as he had left his car lights on.

It was obvious I did not belong here. They were all a bunch of losers who couldn't function with any semblance of order or priorities in their lives.

I shuffled through my handbag and finally resigned myself to reading without my glasses what the teacher, Ms. Sontagg, had written on the blackboard. It was a quiz on how organized we really were. One set of questions was for the men, the other for the women. We were to score one to twelve points for each answer.

1. Are candles in your house a touch of romanticism or the major source of light because you forgot to pay your utility bill?

2. Are you still living out of moving cartons when you have been in your home [check one] ( )five years ( )ten years ( )fifteen years or more?

3. Can you put your hands on the Christmas cards you bought for half price in January?

4. Is your mail stored in one spot or do you use it as a dustpan when you sweep the kitchen floor?

5. Do you put groceries away after each visit to the store or use them directly from the car?

6. Do you often misplace things you use regularly—like door keys, handbags, glasses, or children?

7. Do you forget important occasions like birthdays, dental appointments, rabies shots for the dog, or Christmas?

8. Can you open your closet door without hurting yourself?

9. Would you feel comfortable letting guests wander through your house unattended?

10. Do you accomplish what you want to in a given day or are you always asking “What day is this?”

I leaned over to borrow Ruth's glasses (they were held together with a paper clip) and answered the questions the best I could. My score was deplorable. But that didn't prove anything.

I got by. After all, I had been a writer from my own home for over fifteen years and never missed a deadline. That kind of discipline was bound to take its toll on my personal life. It certainly accounted for the sign on my front door, HOUSE OUT OF ORDER.

Ms. Sontagg said that during the next week we should try to pull together one facet of our daily routine and make some order out of it. In other words: Think Organization.

I walked out with Ruth, who offered to drive me to where my car was parked. (She had also arrived late and had parked her car in a towaway zone). We discussed our frailties.

“The trouble with me,” said Ruth, “is I'm a perfectionist. Do you have a coathanger?”

“What for?”

“I locked my keys in the car. I'm one of those people who can't settle for mediocrity,” she explained, taking off her necklace and making a loop in it to pull the button up. Easy now ... I got it!“ she smiled. ”Do you know I even used to iron diapers? The only reason I'm taking this class is so I can learn how to compromise. If I don't, I'm going to drive myself crazy. What's your problem?"

“It's my mother,” I said. “She thinks I need organization. She plans her next headache.”

Ruth nodded. “I know the type.”

“Her spices are alphabetized. She cleans splatters from her stove every time she uses it. Every year she changes her closet over from winter to summer.”.

“You're kidding!”

“No. I have never seen my mother carry a suede handbag in the summer. She's what I call a box-saver.”

“What's that mean?”

“It's the difference between youth and old age, I think. When you're young you believe that somewhere around the next bend is always a box when you need it. Old age never wants to take that chance.”

“You know, I think you're right,” nodded Ruth.

"She's got boxes inside boxes. I've received scarves in a stationery box, a blouse in a shoebox, and once on my birthday I got a small pendant in a box marked 'Rectal Thermometer.' Every Christmas, I get something from Mother in a Nieman-Marcus box. It's the same box.

My Mother has never been in Nieman-Marcus in her entire life.

“Neat little boxes . . . stacked neatly in her neat little closet,” I rambled, “boxes for transporting cakes, hamsters, laundry, and picnic supplies. Boxes for mailing. Boxes for storing. Boxes for starting fires. Boxes for sleeping dogs, snapshots, and memorabilia. Boxes for rainy-day projects. Boxes for boots by the door. Boxes to keep the baked beans from spilling over the car trunk. Boxes for a child's birthday present . . . boxes in boxes. ...”

“Well,” said Ruth, “it's been nice talking to you. See you next week in class.”

“I guess so,” I hesitated.

“The first rule of being organized,” smiled Ruth, “is to keep an appointment book with you at all times.” She took out a little green leather book titled calendar and leafed through to the date. “Let's see,” she said, “Next Tuesday would be the sixteenth and the class starts at seven. I told you I'm a perfectionist,” she said, slamming the book shut.

Under calendar . . . embossed in gold . . . was the year 1976.

At the second session of Tidying Up Your Life, I looked for Ruth, but she never appeared. It was too bad, because we dealt with something that had long been a mystery to me: how to make the paperwork easier around the house.

I had a desk, but it was always cluttered and I mixed my business and personal papers together.

My checkbook hadn't been balanced in years.

Ms. Sontagg's suggestions were exciting. She said that for every check I wrote I should be recording it in a little booklet that fit right inside my checkbook. There was space on it for the date, the check number, who it was written to, and the amount.

Now, wouldn't you have thought that someone would have come up with that idea years ago? It certainly simplified knowing what your balance was at all times.

Ms. Sontagg gave us a home assignment. She said during the next week she wanted us to clean out one closet. “Be ruthless,” she warned. “Throw out and keep nothing you are not using. We all have a tendency to accumulate things we don't need, but are reluctant to throw away. Do it!”

As she talked, I knew what I had to do. Clean out my husband's closet. It was a storehouse for all seasons.

Every time I opened the door it was like being in a time capsule. His first pair of long trousers. His knickers that he received his First Communion in. His double-breasted suit that he graduated in. His Nehru jacket. They were all there, along with his double-runnered ice skates, bowling ball, kite, composition books from college, old report cards, roadmaps (listing the original thirteen colonies), and fifteen years of back issues of teachers' magazines.

He had a thing about his possessions. Once I tried to pack for him for a vacation and he became quite testy and told me he could do it himself. His luggage weighed a ton. It should have. He was prepared for any occasion. If he won the Nobel peace prize, he had the clothes for it. If he was taken prisoner, he had the clothes for it. He could commandeer a torpedo boat through a squall, barter clothes for mules and guides into a remote jungle, and he had the wardrobe for it. He carried clothes for snorkel-ing, discoing, safaris, high teas, low ceilings, clothes for lounging, and clothes to leave behind as tips.

In tossing out his clothes I followed the three basic rules to a tee. (1) Have I used or worn it recently? (2) Will I ever use or wear it again? (3) Does it have any sentimental value to me?

Since it was his closet, the decisions were relatively simple.

It was with a feeling of exhilaration that I called a local organization that employed reformed gamblers and had an outlet store for used merchandise. They backed up the truck and I waved good-bye to clutter.

I knew the exact moment my husband discovered what I had done. You could have heard him in the next county. “What have you done with my clothes?”

“I have sent them to that big Trick or Treat in the sky.”

He shook his head slowly. “Not my pants with the pockets in them? Not my lucky sweater that I was wearing when the war ended? Not my penny loafers?”

He needn't have carried on so. Within a week, the truck was back with all the items from his closet with a note saying “We're needy . . . not desperate.”

I missed a couple of sessions of Tidying Up Your Life, but when I went back for the last meeting I saw Ruth.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“I told you I'm a perfectionist,” she said. “I went home from the first class and started to dress all of my daughter's naked dolls. It took longer than I thought. Are you getting your life together?”

I assured her I was. My turkey roaster was stored on a shelf so high you got nosebleed from it. I had hooks on every door in the house, shelves in every bit of closet space, and was so efficient I was putting sanitized strips across the Johns every time I cleaned them. I even ventured into my son's bedroom.

“How long has it been since you were in there?”

“Nineteen seventy-six. He had flu.”

“How old is he?” asked Ruth.

“He's a senior in high school.”

“Then he'll be going away to school next year?”

“I guess so. We haven't talked about it. I'm afraid I don't relate to my son very well. He's the last one at home and we seem to come from different worlds. Somewhere I've failed him.”

“Good grief! You put hooks on his doors and a basketball hoop over his clothes hamper. What does he ^yant from you? Socks that match?”

“He doesn't want anything. That's the problem. It's probably my fault he doesn't spend more time at home. When he's there all I do is yell at him. I complain because I have to pick up after him all the time.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“I yell at him for coming in late. I yell at him for wrecking the car. I yell at him for not getting a job. I yell at him for bad grades.”

“So what's the problem? You want more choices?”

“You don't understand, Ruth.”

“Oh, I understand all right,” she said. "You're suffering from terminal guilt. How do you want to be remembered when you go? With a tombstone that stands upright and is chiseled with A MOTHER WHO CARED ENOUGH TO NAG or one that lies flat on the ground like a doormat with a welcome so everyone can step on it?

“You're on a guilt trip, my friend, and it's time you started living your own life. You should be like me. Two years ago I saw the light. I had just finished reading a book called I'// Give Up Guilt When I Stop Making You Feel Rotten. My son was cooking breakfast one morning when he broke the yolk in his egg. He yelled, 'Mom! Here's another egg for you to eat' and proceeded to break a fresh egg into the skillet for himself. At that moment I came to terms with myself. I announced, 'From this day forward, I am never going to eat another egg with the yolk broken.'”

“That's a beautiful story,” I said.

“And it could be your story. Things are changing. We don't have to feel guilty any more about things that are supposed to be. Get the book and read it. Listen, it's been fun. I don't know about you, but I've gotten a lot out of this class. From here on in, my life is going to be orderly. I'm going to think before I talk; plan before I act; act before I procrastinate. I think I've got it all together now. So long, Edna.”

“That's Erma,” I said.

16

I'll give up guilt when I stop making you feel rotten

I'D BEEN giving a lot of thought to my tombstone lately and was torn between

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A HAIRCUT

I CANT HEAR

or

OVERDOSED ON IRON

AND RUSTED TO DEATH 19—

Ruth had mentioned the word I never wanted to hear or for that matter deal with, guilt. She didn't know it but I was an authority on guilt. Had there been a Guilt

Olympics, I could have won the Decathlon hands down. All ten events:

1. The ten-ring dash for the telephone call from Mother. Why did I instinctively know it was from her and let it ring while I got a cup of coffee and a calendar before I picked up the receiver?

2. The kitchen-table broad jump. Whenever anyone looked around and noticed salt/steak sauce/mustard/catsup/sugar bowl or anything missing, I jumped up like a gazelle and ran for it like I had springs in my underwear.

3. The thirty-minute nap. When I heard a key in the door, I'd jump up, throw cold water on my face, smooth my clothes, pull the bedspread taut, stagger into the kitchen, and throw an onion in the oven. When my husband mentioned the chenille marks on my face, I'd lie and say, “It's bad skin.”

4. The finish-off-the-leftovers event. Sometimes, I'd do a bypass right at the table where, instead of scraping the leftovers off into the disposer, I'd stuff them down Erma. Other times, I'd put them in a holding pattern in the refrigerator and try to inhale all of them by the next “grocery day.”

5. The Sunday-night “paper due on Monday” dash. Faced with a child with a paper that had been assigned on the first day of school but had been put off, I felt obliged to borrow reference books on “The History of String” from a person who lived across town on a street that changed names three times after you left the expressway.

6. The draperies-can-be-cleaned-again-and-they'll-look-like-new hurdles. For six years I sacrificed new draperies for baton lessons, a root canal, ten-speed bicycle, low-calorie camp, classical guitar, and two snow tires.

7. The new-puppy throw-up. Despite repeated opposition to a new puppy, I gave in and ended up with a new lifestyle: contemporary dog hair with wall-to-wall urine and a barking doorbell.

8. The javelin throw through the heart. The first one home in the evening would look me straight in the eye and say, “Anyone home?” When I'd say, “I'm home,” they'd say emphatically, “I mean ANYBODY!”