Where the go lytely went~

Many of you will be shocked to learn that I can be a little, ahem, intolerant. This is only because I am so often the only one who is right about stuff. It's a heavy burden.
I married someone who is, ahem, not usually right about stuff. It's a heavy burden.
The Mr.'s mom is not the "everything in its place" type. Well that's not altogether accurate. Everything in its place means everything within arm's length. Everything not within arm's length is someone else's concern. This means if she needs the phone and it's across the room, someone else needs to fetch it. In order for this system to work, she has created multiple piles of various things like papers, pens, magazines, etc. that surround her chair in the living room. What does this have to do with the Mr., myself and Go Lytely? Well, I'll tell ya.
Some things, no matter how far removed we are, remain with us from our childhoods. For me, it is the belief that stuff has a place and as long as you are walking past an item, you need to pick that item up and put it away. Kitchen cleaned at night. Earrings not left on end tables after work. Mail sorted, junk mail pitched and the rest organized somewhere and that somewhere not being the kitchen table. Etc.
The Mr. simply cannot grasp this simple and right way of doing things. It is a forever battle. He believes the kitchen table is the God-anointed receptacle of all things. He believes that if he will need his lunch box on Monday it makes perfect sense to leave it on said kitchen table from Thursday until Monday when he will need it again saving him the seven steps to the hook that I have designated for it, that hook being the right thing.
So the Mr. leaves crap, I mean stuff, everywhere every day. And I go along meekly and humbly picking it up. All sweetness and light, that's what I am.
There are a few specific occasions in which the putting away of stuff and straightening of the home is of epic importance. When one leaves for work in the morning. When one is going into the hospital. When one is going on vacation. I am sure you see the theme as you are all people of reason and right-thinking such as I. The point is that when one comes home, one prefers to enter a well organized and pleasant place. It's only right.
Well, the day we left on vacation I had worked and then come home to pack and prepare to leave that evening. After everything was loaded into the car and the beds neatly made with fresh sheets (this is also important if one is to be right), I went through one last time to clear off the stuff that the Mr. had spread on every available surface.
Home we came and finally it was time to start the dreaded colonoscopy prep.
"Where's my procedure stuff?" says the Mr., refusing to say colonoscopy.
"I don't know what you're talking about." says me, refusing to answer a question as vague and silly as this. How could a person loose a bowel prep kit? Not. My. Problem.
"I can't find it. What do I do?" says he.
"Find it." says me, ever patient.
"Did you throw it away?"
"I don't believe I would have thrown your colonoscopy bowel evacuation prep kit away."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure. Where was it when you last saw it?"
Now friends & neighbors, brace yourselves.
"I left it right here," points, "on the END TABLE IN THE FAMILY ROOM."
"You left it on the end table?"
"Yes."
"That's stupid and ridiculous."
"It's not stupid. I was reading the instructions before we left."
"So you decided that the best possible place for a colonoscopy bowel evacuation prep kit was on the family room end table?"
"Yes. That way I could find it. Do you think you threw it away?"
"Well, I don't recall throwing it away but considering you left your colonoscopy bowel evacuation prep kit in the family room, I may very well have."
"Why?"
"Because giant jugs of laxatives do not belong on the end table in the family room."

Off goes the Mr. to check the garbage and sure enough. He's irritated at me for throwing it away but obviously it was the right thing to do. In my defense, I did not specifically throw away his Go Lytely so much as pick up a large white bag that did not belong on the end table as I was straightening up before vacation. I don't even recall throwing it away but I'm sure it was me since he subscribes to the aforementioned "everything in arms length" theory. Which is wrong.
So he retrieved his bowel prep and all was fine and dandy in the end.
And I do not apologize for throwing it away.
I say, "Stop leaving your stuff all over the freaking house and I will not be forced to throw your stuff in the garbage."
Amen. Over & out. Selah.

Image:http://www.galacticmu.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/dsc_9765.jpg