Just a Story. No Links. No Sell-i-ness.

Order In The House.


When I was eight, I wanted to be a librarian when I grew up.I thought this would be the best job in the world, because it involved two of my favorite things: Books, and orderliness.

Now, maybe it wasn’t natural for a child to hang her Barbie clothes by color, or line up her days-of-the-week panties in her top drawer in descending order, from Monday to Sunday. In the years since, I have let down my standards quite a bit: My spice rack is not alphabetized. My driveway is covered with leaves. But at eight, order still ruled.

Which was why every book I owned was listed in a card catalog by subject, author, and title. And if someone wanted to borrow it, I filled out a little slip with a due date and paper-clipped it to the inside flap. And if my friends dared to return these books a day late?. . . I fined them a quarter. I know: what a little bi--h, right?

Luckily, I married a man who appreciates order almost as much as I do. And who would never leave a wet towel on the floor * Shudder *

Last year, after painting our living room, I decided to re-shelve some books by color. The result, after a few hours’ work, was beautiful: the yellow spines gave way to cream gave way to white: green to turquoise to blue. When I wrote each morning, I could look up at those books and take in the beautiful rainbow.

About a month ago, I came home from the grocery store and noticed, with horror, that the books had been rearranged by height, from shortest to tallest. The rainbow was dead!

You guessed it: The hubby did it. And oh, how I wanted to fine his a—.