Those of you who saw Gaby's latest post saw a portion of the mess I made in the back room this morning. Unfortunately, this is part of an ongoing thing that he refers to as "cleaning house," and I refer to as "hiding my stuff." It started when he moved in and hid my W-2s and other important tax documents in a cardboard box under a desk.
The other night he asked me if I had seen his gardening tools left out in the front yard. When I said yes, he asked me why I hadn't moved them. I didn't answer, but the reason was because I didn't want to put him through the frustration of not being able to find them. Besides, how was I to know he didn't leave them there on purpose? What if he wasn't finished using them?
We also have different ideas about where things go. To me the Tinactin goes in the shelf above the bed where I can reach it when I'm putting on my socks. Same for the Diprolene. He thinks they should go on top of the dresser, across the room and out of reach. I don't know why. I also think that my blue comb should go on the dresser instead of in the shaving kit in the bathroom cabinet where I always find it after searching in more reasonable places.
This morning, when I got home from work, I knew it wouldn't be easy for me to sleep, so I took a sleeping pill. While I was waiting for it to kick in, I decided to take some measurements to see how many 2x4s I would need for the new closet/desk.
When I'm looking for something, I follow a certain routine: First, I look where I last saw it. It doesn't matter if it's been three months since it was on the dining room table, that's still the first place I will look. The last time I saw the measuring tape, it was on the computer desk. It wasn't there, nor was it next to the TV, which is another place I saw it recently.
Second I will look where it belongs. It was not in the wire rack in the utility room, nor was it in the drawer under the TV.
Thirdly, I will look where Gaby thinks it goes. Usually I have to ask him where that might be, but today he was asleep. I assumed that he would think it should be in the garage, but I didn't want to go out there, so I skipped to step four, which is to wander around the house hoping I might just spot it.
Failing that, step five is to tear up the house while cursing. I got started on this, pulling out drawers and their contents, moving stuff around on the computer desk and in the utility room, but then the sleeping pill started to kick in, and I went to bed.
When I got up, all the messes had been cleaned up. I asked Gaby where the measuring tape was. He didn't know. I grabbed the keys and went out to the studio. There it was on the desk, right where I had put it a few days ago. Now I'm feeling a bit foolish, and I owe Gaby an apology.
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