A random thought about organized chaos

I recall something quite amusing that happened to me a few years ago, when I was a teenager. A friend of ours had just come to our flat for a visit and, for some reason which I can’t remember, he’d asked if we had a pair of scissors. I just happened to notice, by pure chance, that the scissors were actually lying on the floor, under a cupboard. So, I just pointed them out to my friend. My friend went and picked up the scissors from the floor under the cupboard, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be there and, when he finished with the scissors, he went and put them back under the cupboard. A little bit bemused, we asked him why he had put them there, and he replied that he thought it was where we usually kept them. He probably must have thought that our place was a bit unusual, which it was, I have to admit, I mean, you can’t have six children in a house and not expect some degree of chaos in it. What surprised me was his logic. Obviously the logic of someone used to organized chaos.

When there is organized chaos around you, you know exactly where things are without having to tidy up the place. For organized chaotic people there’s nothing more irritating than those people who decide to put things were they think they “should” be kept. So, you come back home thinking “I’d love to listen to that CD I was listening to last night, I could do with some relaxing music just now.” Then, you go and look under the bed (that’s where you remember leaving it the previous night, therefore where it’s supposed to be) and realise, to your horror, that the CD is no longer there!!! What’s happened? Where is it? You start cursing everybody and start thinking of all the possible places where it could be, by which point your stress levels start getting higher and you need more than ever that relaxing music. You turn everything inside out, upside down, you look inside bags and paper bins, under the pillow of your settee, in your coat pockets, inside your shoes… and finally… There it is! You find it in the CD rack and, what’s worse, in alphabetical order!! Wow, so you’ve looked everywhere apart from the place where the bloody thing “should” be!! Damn! So that makes you feel even more irritated than before. That relaxing music would do you some good after all!

So, remember, if you live with a chaotically organized person, don’t touch anything!!! You may regret it afterwards. You’ve been warned.