"So... They Toss the Place About a Bit?"

I've always been a bit of a clutter hound.  It hasn't gotten bad enough yet to win me a guest appearance on "Hoarders" but some days I look around and think that day won't be far off.   It's one of my signature cat lady characteristics.  (Minus the cats, of course.)

My house has looked this way, pretty much since we moved in.  In fact, shortly after we bought the house, we had a break-in while we were at work.  The thieves only stole some spare change out of the bedside stand.  I think they were probably having a hard time finding anything else of value in all the clutter.  Living with clutter is a great way to stymie thieves.   

 (Sorry Blair whoever you are... this picture was just too perfect... I had to use it.)

Anyway, the police came and looked around the house to file their report.  At one point, one of the officers looked back and forth and said, "So... they toss the place about a bit?"

Uh... yeaaahhhh...  THAT's what happened!  We would never leave our home this messy otherwise!  Geesh!  You'd think that would be a wake up call!   But, no.  We were undeterred in our quest for clutter supremacy.

Now, I chose my spouse precisely because he came from a home where clutter was king.  Let's just say his father was a bit "eccentric" and collected stuff.  He had his own set up for collecting, including a step stool stored in the trunk of his car, a trouble light, and some of those extending grabber things to extract stuff from dumpsters.  (I think he may have been the original dumpster diver.)

You name it, they had it... from old grocery store display racks, to a dentist's chair, to the entire phone system that was discarded from a local hospital.  They even built a warehouse out behind their house to store all the stuff that overflowed the house.  At one point, my in out-laws didn't sleep in their bed for four years because there wasn't enough room to get to it.  Seriously!  My father-out-law, bless his heart, has slept in a recliner for the past 25 years!

Later on, my spouse had some sort of a religious awakening or something and suddenly became a neat freak... on his own side of the room.  Suddenly, I was the sole cause of the chaos.  (He's also the one who turned me on to Dr Pepper and then later chastised me for becoming a Pepper fiend.)  From that day on, our marriage was doomed.  Well, that and a few other things led to its demise. 

But, you know... it did my heart some good when my son came home giggling the other day because he noticed his dad's new wife throws her crap all over on her side of the bed.  Poetic justice at its finest!

(Oh, yeah... they're keeping a special place for me in hell!)