A Place For Everything

“Where is the toothpaste?” I shouted from the bathroom with very little effect. I tied the towel around my waist and opened the door and peeked outside. There was no reply from my son who was standing just a few feet away nor my wife and daughter who were also nearby. Muttering under my breath I desperately searched for the tube under the pile of shampoo stashes, used razors, old newspaper and many unidentifiable objects in the bathroom. 

This was the daily ritual. While I was the so-called perfectionist, who believed in the old maxim “a place for everything and everything in its place” none of the members in the family even bothered to understand what it stood for and needless to say, never practiced!

The same is the case with my socks, shirts, belts – I and my son are of the same build and this posed a problem; he simply wore whatever he wanted to and later threw it, you guessed it, wherever he wanted to. I tried counseling, teaching, coercing, threatening, shouting – you name it, but in vain. 

Tidiness is something that was loathed. In our house, one can easily find used teacups virtually anywhere; no wonder we are still managing our entertainment with an old and outdated TV set instead of buying a more stylish and modern LCD. Reason? Well, you see the LCD TV set is so slim it is difficult to keep a used teacup on it!

A friend, who more or less sailed in the same boat suggested a novel method; try Gandhigiri, he said. Inspired by Munnabhai, he simply did all the cleaning and tiding work in front of the guests smilingly. This, he said, worked like magic as both his children were embarrassed and started to adhere to discipline.

But the problem of using solutions seen in movies is that it seldom works in real life; you see, both my children had already seen the movie and were ready with counter-attacks. I simply had to grin and bear.

After many years of living together, one day, suddenly I realized that there were five people in my house and not four! The fifth guy’s name was if you have not already guessed it, “I don’t know”.

Who kept the fridge door open? I don’t know! Who spilled the tea on our new sofa cover? Who walked with a dirty shoe on the matt? It was indeed, I don’t know.

Whenever I went out of town, I dreaded coming back; the scene in my house normally resembled a town ransacked by a typhoon! However, years and goading and cursing did create some amount of discipline, though short-lived.   

However last week, to the dismay of my family members, I landed in Bangalore a few hours early. I promptly called from the airport and told them I would be home early, mainly with the intention of providing advance notice of my homecoming.

As soon as I reached home, I went around with my now familiar inspector’s nose. I was pleasantly surprised by the clean and tidy things, my chest swelled with pride. After years of hard work finally, I am reaping dividends, I thought. Everything seemed to be perfect except for my wardrobe. Though the clothes were hung neatly, some awful smell emanated from the cupboard. Covering my nose and controlling the bile rising in my throat, I searched everywhere.

Finally, I nailed the culprit! 

Along with all the ironed clothes was a pair of neatly folded but awfully smelling unwashed socks!