My Battle Against the Forces of Entropy and Chaos

I took a few days in thinking about this next entry because I was having a hard time coming up with a single story I wanted to tell. So many times I just want to hang my head and either laugh or cry ... . Of those I can actually discuss, none of them were long enough to make it worth my time (or yours).

So finally I decided to tell you a little bit about my generic battle with the forces of Entropy and Chaos.

Now, I'm not talking about the routine stuff, like laundry, dishes, and the general toy "explosion" that usually occurs 30 seconds after a toddler gets out of bed or down from his high chair. I'm talking about the oddball stuff that is my house and life.

For starters, I get out in the morning, blissfully aware of how fortunate I am that darling husband takes the baby down for breakfast. I go into the baby's room, pick up the clothes from the floor, and close the diaper wipe box. Then I find clothes for the baby. Most of the time I don't think too much about it, but every once in awhile I just have to wonder. Every morning and every evening I shut that diaper wipe box. Why? No, not why do I do it -- why doesn't everyone? It isn't hard to close. In fact, it is very simple to close. You just put a little pressure on the lid, and it slides gently into place, clicking quietly to let you know it latched.

Yes, changing a diaper can be a challenge. I don't think I need to talk all that much about the hand to hand combat that can come from changing the diaper of a toddler that doesn't WANT his diaper changed. Either you've done it, and I don't need to explain the bruises I have on my upper body, or you still have the pleasure awaiting you and I don't want to spoil it. But still, no matter how vigorous the diaper change was, what is so hard about closing one small lid before you leave the room?

I finally decided that I cannot figure out why the diaper wipe bin has to stay open until I come in to close it. Instead, I've started treating it as my opening salvo each morning in my one-woman crusade against the forces of Entropy and Chaos. This task is simply one step in our enduring struggle, which includes some long standing conflicts such as:

- Why does the crap simply move from room to room, never leaving the house, never getting thrown out, and never finding an "away?"

- The threat, "if you don't put this somewhere, the baby will soon take it as a toy," has tripled the little boy's toy supply.

- Other people have begun storing things in my garage, and I can honestly say I didn't realize how much.

- The forces of Entropy have brainwashed members of my family to pick up their clothes, towels, and other things from the bathroom and take them to the laundry. The washcloths, however, stay in a wet heap in the bathtub.

Sometimes I make progress. Some days -- weeks even -- I make headway and beat back the Chaos with the weapons of order and organization. I pay dearly for these victories. This past Memorial Day I tackled the garage, and I made great progress. After setting aside 4 bins worth of trash to throw out, I had cleared a space big enough for almost 2/3 of my car. I filled the trash bin and set it out to the curb. The trash man dutifully came and hauled the contents away. Over the next day or so, I went to the large stack of trash I'd gathered from my cleaning efforts and stuffed the bin full again. The hardest part, to my surprise, was this large bag of trash I'd carefully set against the house. There was a box in the bottom of the bag to hold the bag upright, and I'd filled it with large, but lightweight, things. I pulled, tugged, and tried to lift the bag into the trash bin (because the trashman won't take things that aren't in the bin). Nothing. This is strange. I put the bag against the house, and now when I want to pull it away, it's too heavy to budge? Something is really odd here. I try again, and again, and even again. When logic fails, I sometimes resort to dogged persistance. Sadly, this, too, fails me.

Finally, after many minutes of struggling, I get my first clue. Something sloshed. Then I looked at the ground. It is wet ... all over. The grass is wet, the car is wet. I brilliantly recall that rain fell from the sky for many hours over the prior two day. I look up at the house. The bag is resting under a gutter that is clogged and overflowing. Oh, crap, the bag is full of water! So not only is it full of disgusting garage trash, it is full of WET disgusting garage trash.

This is so much more then I bargained for when I ran outside wearing socks to put the trash in the bin while the two year old took a drink in the high chair. (He can't hurt any electronics in the high chair unless someone is silly enough to hand one to him.) Now what? Go back inside? Hell no! That would be giving up!

So, I very carefully try to tip the bag. How do you tip a trash bag? Good question. Then I grabbed the bag at the bottom and lifted until water came gushing out. Four tries of this and the bag was finally light enough to lift into the bin. I don't even want to know what happened to the rest of the water or the trash guys that came to take it away.

This was just Entropy's revenge on me for attempting to restore order to the garage. I have managed not to regress on the garage, but so far we've made no further progress. I have noticed, however, that boxes are multiplying in the basement. Entropy will find equilibrium, I suppose.