If you, like me, came home from college classes and sacked out in front of reruns of Friends, you probably understand the title of this post. If not, let me explain: the "Friends" usually hung out at Monica's apartment (when they weren't at Central Perk, the downstairs coffee shop). Monica's apartment was obsessively neat. When Joey and Chandler really wanted to mess with her, they'd do things like shift a picture frame an inch to the right and watch her self-destruct. In her apartment, she had a locked closet in the hallway. Everyone wondered what she kept in there. Ski gear? Out-of-season clothes? Sex toys? Dead bodies? Finally, the Friends found a way to get into the closet, only to find that it was just a jumbled mess-- a spot for her to stuff all the junk that didn't have a place in her obsessively-organized life. She could throw it in there, lock the door, and forget it existed.
There's a Monica Closet in my house too (more accurately, it's behind the house). I'm pretty good at faking neatness and organization in most of my spaces (don't look too closely in my kids' clothes drawers), but my garage is an absolute disaster. There are cardboard boxes spilling out the doors, tools hopelessly jumbled in bins, and a month or so ago, I got a six-inch gash on my shin when I tripped over the kickstand of one of the many bikes lying on the floor. Every so often I halfheartedly pick up the bikes, take the boxes to the recycling center, haul a load to DI, and sweep it out, but I lose my enthusiasm for the project before I tackle the tools or actually figure out a way to efficiently store the bins that are out there. Even when I take an afternoon to neaten it up, there are five other people living here, and it seems to mess itself up again, a fact which I don't notice until it's back at an overwhelming state. A few weeks ago a friend's husband was helping me with a project, and I was mortified by the idea of taking him out to the garage to see the utter disorganization of my tool bins.
Is there a Monica Closet in your house? Do you try to do something about it or just let it be? Do you think it's psychologically important for neatniks to have a place like a Monica Closet?
4 comments:
i might have a drawer that is as organized as your whole house is. i'm trying to make my bedroom into a sanctuary, and it's coming along but not quite there yet.
i always think of you when the valpak coupons arrive in the mail and there's that one for organizing garages. seems like the kind of thing you'll do...someday. after you've decided what to do with the upstairs in that space.
i'm glad that you have a monica's closet. i don't know if we could be friends anymore if you didn't! ;-)
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I am a Monica, but there are no closets like that in my house. I guess I'm even more crazy than she is. That's pretty scary. :)
I think I have several "closets" and they've become so big we've named them. One is the "room of craft crap", the other is "the baby dungeon" containing cribs, changing tables, and other assorted baby items we can't seem to part with.
Luckily most of the house is organized, but we definitely have some Monica's closets. Maybe Kierste needs to come live with me for awhile. Hopefully she'd rub off on me.
my garage is the same way. in fact, right now, i can barely get out of the car, it's so bad. and i do psychologically need to have somewhere when i'm just too tired to find a "place", i can just chuck it in the garage.
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