The Black Hole

I am NOT a clean freak. I like the house to be sanitary, but it
doesn't have to be sterile. As long as there are not pieces of
unknown gunk stuck all over the kitchen counters, crusted dishes
sitting in the sink, or crumbs on the floor that I feel when
walking barefoot (which is always), I am good.

A little dust on the furniture or some newspapers or magazines
laying around on the sofa, I am OK with that. It doesn't matter
if the mirrors and windows are a little dirty, or if there are
fingerprints on the fridge.

There is one thing, though, that I can't abide (besides
Jawas)...and that is CLUTTER. I just can't stand extraneous and
useless CRAP laying around all over the place. My bride calls it
chachki stuff. It's like the entire house being a junk drawer.
It's junk drawers run amok. Junk drawers gone wild. Ok, we get
the point.

My lovely young daughter...delicate flower that she is...is not
what I would term terribly neat. I am hoping it is just a phase
that she is going through, and am hopeful it will end some day.

I forget what color the carpet in her room is, because you
really can't even see it. Whatever she has in her hands that
she decides she does not want to continue holding lands on the
floor in whatever location she is standing in at the time.

If she is taking off shoes or jackets, off they go, and wherever
they happen to end up is where they will take up residence.
I just can't see how she can live like this. I am not a neat
freak, but there comes a point where you just can't have CD's,
clothes, books, papers, cell phone chargers, and even CASH just
laying around on the floor like that. We can't even tell which
clothes are clean, and which ones are dirty.

If we bring up a basket full of clean clothes after the wash,
she will pick them out of the basket if she needs them, or maybe
they will end up on the floor. When my bride asks her to bring
down her dirty clothes to get them washed, I have a hunch she
just grabs an armful of stuff and brings it down, no way of
telling if they are really dirty or not.

Food wrappers, empty (or full) soda cans, even un-eaten food
lurk in the dark corners under her bed.

My fear is that one day she will turn out to be one of those
people you read about in the news with newspapers stacked to
the ceiling, and blocking every passageway in the house.

Now here is a paradox...I affectionately refer to her room as a
'Black Hole'...not because stuff mysteriously vanishes, but
because it gets lost. She has lots of stuff in there, but
whatever you are specifically seeking is nowhere to be found.
So I think what we actually have here is a 'Selective
Singularity'...instead of EVERYTHING in her room getting sucked
up into nothingness, which is what any normal black hole would
do (and would result in a spotless room), it seems to feed only
on things that we may actually want to find.

Bride: Hey, I just put our 2009 tax returns in Ariel's room...I
thought I had laid them on her desk, but now I can't find them.

Me: (with a sinking feeling): Uh...how long ago was that?

Bride: I think it was yesterday.

Me: OMG, I hope it is not too late!

So I go and push open her door...I can feel the resistance of
several tons of miscellaneous debris behind the door that must
be shoved aside. I kick through a pile of Teen Beat magazines
with my foot so I can create a pathway towards her desk. My
hope is that I can retrieve the documents before they have
gotten sucked past the Event Horizon.

Before me stands The Desk. The drawers are all open,
mis-matched socks hang out of them, single shoes without their
mates, long ropes of petrified licorice.

I search the top of the desk, gingerly pushing aside Skittles
wrappers and used up iTunes cards. I think I see what I am
looking for.

Wait! What's this? Could it be the clicker from the old TV
that got misplaced in 2006? Her Human Cell Diorama that she
worked on so hard last year, but never turned in because she
couldn't find it?

Suddenly, I start to feel a tugging at my left foot, slowly but
forcefully pulling me towards the closet. I think I may be on
the verge of discovering the exact location of the Singularity.
As I allow myself to be nudged towards the closet, I can feel a
breeze blowing past me...probably the movement of air being
pulled into the gravitational field.

I manage to pull myself free, grab the tax return, and make a
dash for the door. And I discover that I have been in The Room
for almost 7 hours...Apparently the time distortion has affected
my perception of reality. And now I know why it takes her 5
hours to get ready for bed after taking a shower.

Peace be with you.