Me: Coming Out of the Closet as The Slob Herself

Before writing my next NFTN, I want to write about housekeeping. Clean vs. clutter. Is "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" true? It seems, for the majority of America, save artists, some musicians, and inventors, this is the right belief. It may also be assumed that housekeeping is simply a set of skills to be learned and incorporated into ones life--as if there is no biological determinant involved. I BEG TO DIFFER!

You see, I don't think anyone has ever accused me of being a neat-freak before. I am a woman, and there is an assumption that women are neater than men. I do not believe this is true. I believe more women try to be neat, simply because our culture dictates women will do the housekeeping, and men will marry a good housekeeper.

I've known of two other women who are as "messy" as I am. I don't mean unsanitary or discusting really, but a little more the slob. Wait, I get to include my aunt, so that makes 3 women. My aunt is married, but to a Mexican man who tolerated the mess that comes with 7 kids, a flock of parrots flying free of cages, and the shopping impulse that gathered clothes when the wheels rolled. I love my aunt, maybe mainly because she is the only one in my family like me. We understand eachother. Why "clean" when there are such better things to do with ones time? My aunt is a professional and works in the legal field, and at home, she is a slob. One of the women I nannied for, the Catholic-Italian, she was an attorney, and a slob, but a conservative slob--not really bona fide. The other two women I mentioned, have everything going for them, except the first impression they give when men come to see them at their house. One look, and I, The Slob Herself, said to myself, "Ahah! This is why she isn't married!"

The woman slob has fabric everywhere. Men may have more beer cans lying around, and dirty underwear. I daresay we women slobs pick up the underwear (most of the time, because we wear them more than once before doing laundry and need to have them handy in a drawer) but leave the rest of our wardrobe off-hanger, where it's easy to grab at a moments notice. Clothes, bedclothes, quilts...And it seems there are always cats involved. The spinster slob usually has cats. So the cat rolls around the materials and sheds its fur and leaves everything with a furry film that no feather duster will cure.

At any rate, most of the female slobs never marry. I wonder why. WHY?! Because it's evidence that our entire society is still wrapped up in the idea that women should be the clean Holly Homebodies and men are the providers. Most men are looking for the two-in-one package: housekeeper + sex goddess. If you get sex with a knock-out, yeah, that's nice, but man, if that knock-out CLEANS too, then you sit back and relax. I don't even think cooking is a big deal anymore. ANYONE can order take-out. But you can't get housekeeping unless you pay for it, and there are two ways to seal the deal: Buy a maid service, or marry a suitable woman. The suitable woman is the better return on the money. There is a song called, "A Man Needs a Maid". And how.

So where does that leave female slobs? Well, you either fake it if you want to impress someone enough for the marriage package, or you succumb to your inborn tendencies, mourn your losses, and move on by congratulating yourself that you are no man's slave and your house is a heap-o-fun-and-funk.

This is NOT "a choice". I demand scientists find the "messy" gene, because it is there and we slobs are minorities and suffer from discrimination on a daily basis. A choice. HAH! I've wondered why I was different from the time I was a young girl. "Cameo! CLEAN YOU ROOM!" was my mother's mantra. When forced to do it ("stay in there until it's clean!) I would make every effort to get the job done. While my brother was busy doing a superficial sweep and throwing things in his closet and under the bed, I was dragging everything OUT from under my bed, and my drawers, and my closets, and I would put everything in a gigantic heap in the middle of the floor. A mountain. My father helped excavate the objects under my bed once and he found a banana peel, a wizened grape branch with raisins on it, and a million pens. I wanted to do a thorough job--from beginning to end. So first I reorganized drawers, and redecorated my room. I would move all my furniture around. There was still a mountain on my floor. So then I would sit there and "Oh! Wow! I forgot about this book!" and start reading until my mother opened my door to find me lying across the mountain with one arm behind my head, leg swinging over my knee, and another hand holding the book above my head. "This is a PIGSTYE" she would say. And accuse me of not cleaning. My brother was done the day before.

Then my mother decided to teach me how to be clean. "Pick up as you go along" she would say. She did this in the kitchen: Crack an egg, throw eggshell away. Wipe up egg whites from counter. Pour in flour. When there are a few dishes in the sink, wash them.

My style of making cookies: Crack an egg. Leave eggshell on the counter for experiment later. Leave eggwhites (why clean now when it will just get messier? why waste energy?). Pour in flour. When there are a few dishes in the sink, leave them (I'll do laaater).

I don't think it's laziness. My aunt and I have excellent work ethics. When I worked as a nanny or at business, I did not shirk my duties. Nor did my aunt. But both I and my aunt tend not to "pick up as you go along" because, to us, it's a waste of time. It also disrupts our "flow" of whatever we're doing. If we're cooking, we want to cook. Not clean, cook, clean, cook, clean.

I was different from everyone in my family. My parents knew I was this way from an early age and they raised me and my brother the same. My father picked his clothes out for work the night before and hung them neatly over a rack. My mother cleaned as she went along (though she wasn't anal). And my brother did the "quick clean". I finally had to employ the Quick Clean, just to impress my parents enough to let me out of my room. But I didn't like doing it that way. It felt dishonest. I KNEW it wasn't really clean, and now that I'd shoved everything out of sight, I couldn't FIND anything!

So, feeling so unique and different, I wondered if I had been adopted. And then I went to my aunt's house a few times. No. I was related...Maybe I was my aunt's daughter and she gave me away because she'd had too many born out of wedlock? No. I realized I was not adopted, and there had to be a gene. I looked to my grandparents. Grandpa was a bigger packrat than anyone in the family. Maybe it came from him. The scottish side? Are Scots slobs? I got the red hair, and what other recessive trait from the Scots? My untidy manner? I could also curl my tongue and double-roll it as well. Maybe I was just one big genetic oddball.

When I grew up, I threw guys off-guard. I LOOKED like a "clean" person. I certaintly cleaned myself, had good grooming, and I was very pretty, some thought. No one thinks a pretty woman is a slob. It's sort of counter-intuitive. If God made her beautiful she must also be neat. God's gift to man. Eve. The lawyer I worked for, well, she had a photo of herself when she was young, and she looked like a pin-up. But she was also a slob. Personally, I think her boobs offset her messy ways. Her husband was probably blinded by them. Me, I was flat and messy. Most men don't want to live with that for the rest of their lives. There are better bargains on the market. Oh, and I had a brain too, and was sort of an activist type, so, a definite nix on that one. The best bounty for marriage is a C-cup who cleans and keeps her mouth shut unless she's laughing at your jokes. And, if she's going to clean house for you, she deserve an allowance for keeping herself up as well. The modern man, of course, is not so old-fashioned. He is savvy enough to know the best "deal" is a wife who earns her own keep by working too. There is nothing better than the dual-income, neat-freak, sex-machine marriage.

Some men seemed genuninely shocked by my habits. There was the officer who came into our house when I and my roommate reported a robbery at our first apartment. I still remember the officer, "(Gasp)...Did THEY do this?!" he said, sweeping his hand throughout the apartment. He thought the robbers had trashed our place. No, we told him. My roommate was mortified at the dresser drawers hanging open, but it was only the first few weeks of our adventure as The Odd Couple. She had been my best friend all throughout high school but she was anal-neat and I was "carefree" and creative. She would run the vaccuum-cleaner when I was composing songs on the guitar. She also lined the toilet seat with toilet paper in our own house. Other men didn't ask me out after they saw what the inside of my car looked like. I think some men walk you to your car just to get a look ("is she worth dinner, or...hmmm....NOT").

I even had men try to find out if I was neat in other ways, "You're probably really neat, aren't you?" or something like that. I wouldn't respond. Mmmmmm.

Sometimes, I would get an urge to clean. When I did, I did it right. I would clean the oven with a toothbrush. Or polish the chrome on the tub and sink handles. Or make a toilet look department store (or wherever toilets come from) new. And then my roommate would accuse me of being "Bipolar" and in the middle of a manic cycle. Just because I was doing something out of character.

I have assumed I'm this way because I'm also creative. I had an older friend long ago call me, "The consummate artist". I like to paint with oils, to play guitar and sing, to look at art and nature, to read...and I come up with ideas and inventions. Maybe the messy gene goes along with a certain personality. I know how to organize, and I know how to clean. But I don't want to do it and am not compelled to doing it as most people are. Now that I have a son, I sometimes make more of an effort. But it's still hard and it's inborn.

Unfortunately, being messy is charming and quirky when you're young and beautiful, or very rich. If you're poor and say you don't want to let someone in the house because "it's a mess", you get questions like: "Is there food in the fridge for the KID?!"

Yes, idiot. There is "food in the fridge for the kid". If a mother standing in front of a $500,000 home says she doesn't want to have people over because her house "is a mess", it's disarming and sweet. If a mother standing in front of trailor in a trailor park says the same thing, it's grounds for a search warrant.

So there is discrimination against slobs, and especially slobs who are poor. It has nothing to do with not being raised with proper skills or manners or being lazy. It at least partially very biological and genetic and crosses all cultures and socioeconomic lines. It's just that the rich slobs can afford to hire a maid and an attendant to wash and clean out their car.

I've tried. It takes far too much energy to fight it. I'm coming out of the closet, because everyone already knows anyway, (and I need more closet space for my other crap), and I'm PROUD to say, "Yes, I'm a Slob". If that makes me unmarriageable, among the other items on a "things to look out for when considering a spouse" list, I am saved from the ball-and-chain of the broom.

I've had some people suggest marrying someone neater than you are is the key. Tell me how that one works. Most men expect women to pick up, even if they are neat themselves. No guy wants to pick up after his wife, unless it's a "Victoria's Secret" magazine lying around on the floor. And anal people do not live well with slobs or vice versa. Been there, done that, with my friend, who is a woman and neat, and it practically ruined our friendship. She was in tears and I never knew what the problem was. She kept trying to say, "I need some order. I have to have beautiful surroundings..." and I'm fine with looking out my window at nature for beauty.
I thought I was easy to live with, but I'm not, because I'm not anal.

Sometimes, I am prejudiced against the anal folks. Like the mother I spoke with not long ago, who said, with a manicured hand to her breast, " I KNOW what you mean about DAYCARE." She said this with a nasal emphasis on "daycare". I had just told her I didn't want to put my son there because of personal reservations, but that I would watch someone else's kids short-term in my own house. I said, "What are your reasons for not choosing daycare?" I wondered if she and I had something in common. She said, "Some of those places...ohhh!!!
and she shuddered. Her father-in-law cut interjected proudly, "Marianne keeps an IMMACULATE house." He went on and on and she was almost faint trying to describe the horrors of what might be on the toys her children touched at a daycare. I was struck senseless. Silenced altogether. I had thought she might say something about the psychological effects long separations of child from mother, or neglect issues, or possible abuse scares, which is what I worry about. But to her, the biggest cause for concern was cleanliness. I wrote on my list of things to-do: "Do not have the so-and-sos over for dinner! EVER!" What would she think of my house? I suddenly noticed a smudge on my son's cheek. Does she let her kids play in the dirt and make mud pies or is that "icky"?

There are pros and cons to being a slob. Or being neat. The benefits my son enjoys, from having me as his mother, is that I never, ever, get mad or yell if he spills his milk, or scold him for knocking something over or tracking dirt in. I don't get into a tizzy when his diaper leaks and the sheets need changing, or at the idea that the mattress may be ruined, even with a mattress pad. I don't run to him and force everything out of his mouth, or hand, simply because it might be dirty. If it's a choking hazard, that's one thing. Dirty, and germs, well, there's some science that suggests kids raised in cluttered homes have less asthma and allergies. I am happy to allow my son to experiment, to get paint all over himself and his clothes and hands and the floor, to see what the effects are. I am okay with his throwing food from the table to see the effects of gravity. I don't mind when he dumps the kitty food out of the kitty's dish onto the floor and tries to put it back, or when he plays outside and squishes berries that stain between his fingers or mashes rotton fruit under his shoes.

I may be a slob, but I'm also very loving, very science-minded and open-minded, and frankly, if I were a kid, I'd rather have me as a mom just the way I am rather than neater and more uptight; if I were a kid, I would go for the mom who is a slob. If I were a man...I'd go for the neat freak...umm, except where the bedroom is concerned. Neat Freak doesn't seem like they'd be very much fun.

I had to add (this is one loooooooong post!), I discriminate when it comes to clean or neat, but the other way around. If I met a guy and he invited me to his place and it was totally clean, I would write him off, right away. I would just know it could never go anywhere...I'm not looking for a fling, and know long-term wouldn't last--not necessarily because he would be a problem, but I know I'd be a problem for HIM, eventually. If he was an absolute slob, to the 1st degree, and worse than me, I couldn't do that either. There is such a thing as health hazard and filth or stacks of trash is no good. As for employment, I know I started figuring out the nanny thing, on how to pick an employer, and I took a good look at their house. If they were very neat, I passed. If there was some clutter, I felt it would be a better match.

If I had the money, would I have a housekeeper? Probably. And I would pay her or him very, very, well to keep them!

I love that movie, by-the-way, "The Odd Couple" with Walter Matheau and Jack Lemming (Lemon? whatever). First time I saw it I laughed all the way through. That was me and my former bestfriend from high school, to a "T". I was throwing spagetti on the fridge or wall to see if it would stick (if it was "done") and she was rewashing my dishes with steel wool and bleach.