Around our house, domestic assignments follow a logical rubric \u2026 most of the time.<\/p>\n
For example, my wife has a real job, so she gets our bedroom closet; I have an imaginary job, so I get Irish coffee on weekday mornings (tough chore, I know, but that handle of Carolan\u2019s isn\u2019t going to drink itself). I find a certain Zen-like satisfaction constructing colorful, well-balanced meals in tiny, BPA-free plastic containers, so I pack our kids\u2019 lunches; my wife actually cares about personal hygiene, so she makes them bathe.<\/p>\n
She wraps presents, I shovel the driveway. She remembers people\u2019s names, I retrieve items lost down the toilet. She loads the dishwasher, I go back and re-load it.<\/p>\n
See? Logical. Our chores fall well within our respective skill sets \u2014 even the kids, who pretty much do nothing, which they both excel at (and I\u2019m not just saying that because I\u2019m their dad; they really are precocious slackers).<\/p>\n
But for some reason, even though my organizational approach borders on pathological hoarding disorder, I\u2019m the one in charge of the family\u2019s paperwork.<\/p>\n
For these purposes, \u201cpaperwork\u201d includes: an accordion folder marked \u201cStuff N\u2019 Crap;\u201d a standard-sized file cabinet jammed with legal-sized files and, of course, my desk inbox, which is less a box than it is a teetering stack of loose papers, empty envelopes, old report cards, even older tax returns and, for some reason, a Men At Work record. I think my birth certificate\u2019s in there somewhere, too \u2014 I know our marriage license is.<\/p>\n
Now, as long as I\u2019m able to produce vital items, say the checkbook or vaccination records or a Men at Work record, this chronic archival neglect usually proves benign.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m also responsible for our mail, and therein lies the trouble. I\u2019m talking specifically about what I call the \u201cdenial pile:\u201d an ever-expanding mound of bills, forms, statements, summaries, applications and anything having to do with insurance.<\/p>\n
I remember when mail was fun \u2014 birthday checks, Ranger Rick magazine, personalized BMX license plates you sent away for after eating 25 boxes of Cheerios.<\/p>\n
These days, mail is the bane of my existence. It\u2019s like it just keeps coming and coming, every day. And it\u2019s full of reminders about things I\u2019d rather not be reminded about.<\/p>\n
Ask my letter carrier. I never look in the mailbox, terrified of what\u2019s inside. This works to my advantage, because by the time I finally do check the mail, most of it\u2019s rain-soaked and disintegrating. This means I can toss it straight into the outside trash.<\/p>\n
Anything actually making it into the house, however, meets a different fate. Usually, I cull the magazines, the Cabela\u2019s catalogue and the LL Bean catalogue (which are essentially red state-blue state analogs of each other). I\u2019ll also fish out the fetish porn guides and mail-order weapons listings the previous owner still receives at our address; I find these both hilariously frightening and frighteningly hilarious. Ditto any material he gets from the Donald Trump campaign.<\/p>\n
Once I recycle the junk mail \u2014 or, to the delight of my children, torch it in the woodstove (that\u2019s where all the Trump stuff goes; so satisfying) \u2014 all the leftovers head straight to the denial pile, which, interestingly enough, consists entirely of items requiring timely action.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m both lazy and a procrastinator; if there\u2019s anything I dread more than having to do something, it\u2019s having to do it at that precise moment. So, by the time I get around to attacking the denial pile, it\u2019s mostly overdue. This now requires even more immediate attention, which I\u2019m even less likely to give.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a vicious cycle. Thus the denial pile never shrinks: it simply moves from place to place. Of course, it can also split off to form satellite denial piles. In fact, at this moment, we\u2019ve got a whole constellation of them: one on the counter, one on the bookshelf, one by the phone and one on the workbench (which bespeaks the amount of \u201cwork\u201d I do there). And let\u2019s not forget the one in the car wedged between the dashboard and the windshield. That particular satellite is growing into a primary denial pile itself, with its own sub-satellite piles in the backseat, glove box and center console.<\/p>\n
Still, week after week, \u201cdenial pile\u201d remains on my to-do list, long after I\u2019ve completed such other odious tasks as cleaning the fridge or removing hair clogs from the shower drain. I\u2019d rather do taxes, even.<\/p>\n
Why, then, don\u2019t I cede paperwork duty to my wife? Great question. Although an even better one might be why she doesn\u2019t wrest it from me, herself, considering her organizational skills, by contrast, border on obsessive-compulsive disorder.<\/p>\n
I suspect this owes to two factors. First, it may just be because that\u2019s how we\u2019ve always done it. Really, that explains why most people do most things.<\/p>\n
More fundamentally, however, we\u2019ve learned to embrace the chaos \u2014 after all, how boring would life be without a little chaos?<\/p>\n
I mean, you should see the backlog of unread messages I\u2019ve allowed to stack up in my gmail account. That\u2019s right \u2014 there\u2019s an \u201ce-nial pile,\u201d too. Only that one I can\u2019t use to swat mosquitos.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Geoff Kirsch is a Juneau-based writer and humorist. \u201cSlack Tide\u201d appears every second and fourth Sunday in Neighbors.<\/p>\n
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