There's Neat ... and Then There's Tidy

It would not be an exaggeration to say I like a clean and orderly house.

It would also not be an exaggeration to say that I find Dyson vacuum cleaners enormously sexy and would stop at next to nothing to lure one of those smoking hot, bagless bastards into my bed.

In other words, I am a mature and rational woman.

I am hardly the deranged neat freak my 4-year-old son, Gus, would have you believe. Just the other night he found me straightening his room. “Mom,” he said slowly, as if I were holding a loaded pistol. “Let’s just calm down. You don’t have to get all crazy.” Can a mother not use her Brother P-Touch Label Maker to alphabetize her son’s underwear drawer? And would it be “H” for “Handy” or “M” for “Manny”?
 
If I do have slightly fastidious leanings, I come by them honestly. My parents are very neat and organized people. While my father isn’t exactly Niles Crane (he’s a brunette), I can tell you that dirt or chaos of any kind makes him very excitable.

Last time I was home for a visit, he carried my suitcase up to the guest bedroom, and as he peeked into the adjoining bath to make certain everything was ship-shape, he let out a horrified shriek.

“Daddy!” I exclaimed. “What is it?”

The toilet paper, which hangs in a dispenser over the floor vent, had blown up and come unraveled, leaving several inches of Cottonelle dragging helter-skelter on the tile floor. We got through it, of course, but you can imagine how upsetting this was for everyone.

I’ve often heard that little girls grow up to marry men who remind them of their fathers. While this is not the case with me and my husband (who is still learning the ins and outs of how to operate a clothes hanger), I will admit to having the occasional fantasy in which I’m married to a delightful gay man named Tidy.

I come home from work, and Tidy greets me at the door with a pink feather duster. Grinning wickedly, he leans in close and lisps into my ear, “I sanitized the kitchen walls.”

“Say it again, Tidy,” I whisper. “But more slowly this time.”

“I said … I sanitized the kitchen walls.”

“OH MY GOD, YES, TIDY!  YES! YES!”

Yes.