If, as a great philosopher once opined, a feather is the fetish and the whole chicken is the perversion, Thing2’s fetish started with a belief that every scrap of paper and dot of dust was potential memorabilia and became a perversion about the time my mobility was curtailed and allowed his less-monitored room to became a level three biohazard.
Rather than help him with his audition project for hoarders, I’ve decided that an intervention is at hand, and with it one of life’s hardest lessons.
See, I’ve given Thing2 one week (till next Saturday) to get said room to look like, well a room. This means something that can be vacuumed without invalidating the warranty on an industrial strength shop-vac and a place where no dresser or desk is covered with enough toys and paper to qualify for a geographic name starting with Mt. Anything. Or else.
The penalty for failure will be swift and severe and carried out at the business end of a snow shovel and a big black contractor bag. Even if I have to hobble to do it, we are talking about the full Momm-ty – a complete strip down of all non-essential playthings (cue the drums and trombone).
I’ve warned him. Thing1 has warned him, but my guess is that school will be in for Thing2 on Saturday
As Thing1 has tried to tell him, and as most of us have found out at some point in our tween or teen years, the last thing you want in life, is to have your mother clean up your mess because unlike the maid for whom she is often mistaken, we all know mom has her own ideas about how many toys you really need to hang onto.
Thing1 was appalled when I tossed his broken collection of remote-less remote-controlled cars, instead saving his Elmo doll for sentimental reasons. He swears he’ll be telling a shrink about it someday even though he doesn’t really miss the cars. But he got the point after one or two scorched earth cleaning attacks.
Your room is a lot like the rest of your life. If you don’t keep it in order your mom may come along and straighten things out for you. And the only thing that’ll get you is a good story for your psychiatrist.