Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, the classic “Odd Couple” — roommates incompatible in every way!  Polar opposites.  Each the antithesis of the other.  One fastidious and obsessively neat; the other an absolute, undeniable slob!  Neil Simon first introduced his lovable characters to the world in 1968 in his screenplay, and they continued to entertain us in their television sitcom through 1975.   The pair of mismatched friends may no longer be on the air, but they are indeed still alive . . . in many of us!  In fact, Oscar and Felix’s traits have become descriptors for people we know!  “Oh, my gosh!  You’re room is so messy and cluttered, you’d think Oscar Madison lived here!” I used to say to my own kids.

My husband is Oscar Madison in many ways.   His inattention to tidiness went largely unnoticed — well, more ignored — until the nest emptied, but now it has become a focal point in our household.  He leaves things wherever he finishes using them.  Empty ice cream cartons stick to the kitchen counter top where they’ve been sitting over night despite the fact that the trash can is less than three feet away!  Envelopes from opened mail clutter his desktop.  Matchbooks with no matches left inside go through the laundry and end up as hard pebbles stuck to his pants and to the dryer’s lint screen.  Naked hangers in the closet either dangle on the dowel or lie scattered on the floor.  Reading glasses travel from room to room all by themselves!  They must scurry from place to place like rats in a maze!  One minute they’re resting beside the computer, then all of a sudden they appear on the kitchen counter or in the family room or on the dining room table or outside on the fire pit or even inside a shoe!  How DO they do that?  And I, Felix Unger extraordinaire, race around tidying up after him.  But it REALLY bugs me!

“Why can’t you just toss the empty ice cream carton into the trash can?  It’s not even two steps away from where you’re scooping!” I ask with obvious irritation.

“Well, if you weren’t such a Felix Unger, it wouldn’t bother you so much!” he says, equally annoyed.

And so it goes, the push-pull between two people with disparate attitudes about housekeeping sharing a home.

Uh oh!  Hold on a second! It just dawned on me —maybe the problem isn’t with my husband or my kids or everyone else in the world who doesn’t make their beds in the morning, or arrange their closets in ascending degrees of colors, darks to lights, solids to prints, wools to cottons! Could it be that the problem is ME?!  NOOOOOOO!  Could it?  Possibly!  Hmmmmmm . . . .

I’ve always been a neat-nick.  From as far back as memory serves, I busied myself by organizing, sorting, arranging, rearranging, classifying and prioritizing everything in my world.  Stuffed animals knew their places in my room.  Bright Eyes, the cat, was given the place of honor smack dab in the middle of my bed.  The others, not important enough to be named, filled a set of shelves standing in the corner, the smaller animals at the top.  Sometimes I allowed the lion or the teddy bear to move up a couple of tiers, but . . . their size just didn’t quite fit into the overall symmetry of the shelf, and they were once again banished to the lower levels.

On rainy days, my sister and I played jewelry store.  We each displayed our assortment of treasures on top of our three-drawer dressers to sell to each other.  My sister’s store was up and ready for business in no time!  She had no order too her display.  It seemed that no care or thought was given to her presentation at all!  The chains of some of her necklaces were tangled and knotted.  Rings were turned backwards with the gems facing her, the seller!  Bracelets and bangles piled on top of each other.  Pins lay upside down, showing the pin rather than the stone!  It’s a good thing she never pursued a career in retail!  She would have starved!  My store, however, was a mini-Tiffany’s!  I borrowed a large remnant of velvet from my mother’s sewing notions and draped it over my dresser to provide that professional look.  Each necklace, bracelet, ring and pin sparkled against the black velvet background.  Better, more precious items were separated from the lesser quality pieces.  My sister announced her readiness while impatiently awaiting the grand opening of my store.  I shopped at her store first, but after making only a nominal purchase, I spent the remainder of my allotted shopping time to arrange her inventory in a more appealing display while only pretending to be interested in making another purchase.  When it was her turn to shop at my store, I couldn’t bring myself to part with any of my trinkets!  I knew they’d be destined to a lifetime of tangled chaos at the bottom of her jewelry box!  I did the only thing I knew . . . I set the price of each item well above the total amount of her allowance . . . for an entire month!

“No fair!” she protested, “You’re supposed to SELL me stuff just like I sold YOU stuff!”

“Well, I’m the owner of this store and I can put whatever prices I want on whatEVER I want!” I snapped back, my arms covering my display in a mid-air protective hug.

“Then I’m not playing anymore!”  she said.

“Me neither!” I agreed, relieved that my valuables were no longer at risk.

The truth is, I never had any intention of selling anything . . . EVER!  I only played store with her so I could sort, arrange and admire my nice things!

Throughout elementary school, mine was the cleanest, most organized desk in the class.  PeeChee folders provided the base for textbooks, notebooks and outside readers while a pencil case in the shape of a studious owl held two #2 pencils, one cartridge pen, one pink eraser and one red correcting pencil.  The pencil sharpener sat alone in the tray meant for loose pencils.  Special care was given to textbooks.  The covers were always so clean and beautiful on the day my mom bought them for me!  I didn’t want anything to happen to them to diminish that beauty, so I took them home, retrieved brown paper grocery bags from the kitchen pantry and made book covers for them.  Each one was labeled in large capital letters with a wide-tipped black Magic Marker: “Reading,” “Grammar,” “Geography,” “Math,” “Science.”  The other kids in the class looked at me like I had two heads, but I didn’t care.  My school supplies were by far the neatest and cleanest, not only within my classroom, but probably in the entire school!

The compulsion toward neatness, and efficiency continued to grow right along with me.  Once I had a family and a house of my own, I was determined to raise children who appreciated order.  However, my penchant for tidiness drove my two boys crazy.  There was a constant struggle between them and me over the condition of their bedrooms.

“Have you made your bed?” I asked every single morning as they appeared for breakfast.

“Doesn’t Mela come today?” they asked, trying to dodge their responsibility.

“Mela is a housekeeper, NOT A SLAVE!” I said, not letting them off the hook.  “Just because we have a housekeeper does NOT relieve you from your responsibilities to keep your rooms in presentable order!”

“They ARE presentable!” they argued.  “You’re the one who can’t stand if there’s one little thing out of place!”

The boys used to annoy me on purpose, too.  Setting the table for meals was one of their daily chores.  Our stoneware plates were decorated with a house and garden scene typical of an Early American embroidery sampler.  Of course, I expected the plate to rest in the center of the placemat, house squarely positioned in front of the chair. More often than not, when I brought the meal to the table, I noticed that the houses were facing to the right or to the left or even sometimes, upside down!

“Boys!” I called, summoning them to dinner, “before you sit down to eat, you need to rearrange those plates so that they’re facing the right direction!”

The smirks on their faces and their shared knowing glances betrayed the delight in their success at irritating me.

Co-workers and friends have also labeled me a Felix Unger.   My lesson planning spiral notebook was the envy of the entire faculty.  As a carry-over from my childhood, I wanted to protect the pristine condition of the book’s soft green cover, so I reinforced it with clear adhesive Contact paper.  Differently colored plastic index tabs identified the section for each class, Hons. English I, English I, Adv. ESL I and Rd’g/Wrt’g/Grmr. II., and a large steel clip marked the exact week of lessons.  As the year drew on, my plan book had no curled corners on pages and no torn or bent covers.  Other teachers rifled through their books, searching for the current week’s lesson or class list pages.  Bulletin boards in my classroom changed monthly to illustrate a particular season, grammar rule or genre of literature.  Other classrooms revved up for Back-to-School Night in September and remained unchanged until the last day of instruction in early June.  Girlfriends frequently marvel over my home-sewn organizer inside my purse which provides more pockets for keys, lipstick, tissue, cell phone and mints.  My car, now five years old, still looks like I just drove it off the dealer’s lot.  Whenever it becomes absolutely necessary for the dog to travel with me, I line the interior with a heavy protective tarp.  Even the inside door panels are protected with specially made covers that clip to the insides of the windows and a black mesh screen bars Rusty from jumping into the front seat and riding shotgun! Aside from the inevitable nose marks on the windows, there is no evidence of a four-legged passenger ever having been inside!  The fact that there exist such items proves to me that there are other Felix Ungers out in the world, too!

Grocery shopping presents particular challenges for the Felix Unger in me.  Of course I prepare an itemized list, detailing everything I need, that’s not the problem.  Once I wheel my cart into the produce section, tear off a plastic bag and begin to select the best vegetables or fruits, I adhere to a strict mandate governing the number of each item on my list.  Tomatoes, for example, are always on the list.  I examine each one,  gently squeezing to test for firmness and checking for blemishes, before dropping it into the bag.  I choose, two, four or six tomatoes; never one, three or five.  My self-imposed rule is to choose even numbers of fruits and vegetables, NEVER odd . . . with the exception of lettuce and watermelon.  In those cases, I can choose only one!   Who needs two of those on a weekly basis?  Unloading the items from the cart onto the conveyor belt to check out requires special attention.  First off are the reusable bags (with the insulated Cold-Pak bag on top) signalling the start of a new order to the cashier.  Next up are the items needing refrigeration: yogurt, eggs, milk, meats, ice cream, cheese, etc.  After the produce has been off-loaded, scanned and set aside for bagging, there is no hierarchy for the remaining items in the cart.  Crackers, coffee, pasta and cookies don’t require special care in packing, so they are last off.  Not to stand idly waiting for the total amount to be tallied, I offer packing instructions to the bag boy!

“You should use the Cold-Pak bag for all of the cold items,” I begin, “It snaps closed to keep the temperature cold!  And try not to put the English muffins at the bottom of the bag.  They’ll get squished!”

I’m pretty sure that my shopping techniques have been the topic of discussion in the employee’s break room!  Recently, it seems as though I’ve been assigned to a particular bag girl who has Felix Unger tendencies too!  She’s a real packing dynamo!

“Good Morning!” she greets with a lilt in her voice and a smile on her face, “let’s see . . . Cora, could you scan the Kleenex and paper towels next?  I’m saving space for them in this bag!  Then give me the aluminum foil and coffee filters!”

I LOVE THIS GIRL!  Ordinarily, I wheel my packed groceries out to the car by myself, but when she asked if I needed help, I accepted immediately!  I couldn’t help but comment on her excellent packing skills.  That’s when she told me that she’d just finished reading The  Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo and how it impacted her.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I squealed with delight, “I’ve read it, too!  Isn’t it THE BEST BOOK EVER?”

We chatted for awhile, she not too attentive to putting my groceries in my car, gushing over how helpful and “magic” the art of tidying really is.

“I used to think I was really good at organizing, but that book has changed my life!” I told her.

“Oh my gosh!  Me too!” she agreed, “Do you fold your shorts so that you can store them laterally in your drawer now?  I do and Marie Kondo is right — it’s MUCH more efficient!”

“Of course I do!” I said, “I have made all the changes she suggested!”

My house has NEVER been so tidy!  Being neat is part of who I am.  Organizing, sorting, tidying . . . it’s what I do.   I vow to be more tolerant of the Oscar Madisons in my life because I have come to realize that compared to me, even Felix Unger was a slob!