When I got up one Saturday morning, the kids were not yet at full steam, and The Daddy was perusing the sale flyer from Lowe’s.

“Look at this!” he said, holding the flyer out so I could see. “A closet organization system for only $39!”

The picture looked something like this – some wire shelves and rods, etc.:

I looked blankly at him and the flyer. I clutched my coffee mug and tried in vain to activate my thinking apparatus. He continued to enthusiastically hold up the picture of the closet. “Wouldn’t that be great? We could get one for Benjamin’s closet and a couple for ours.”

I kept looking at it, but couldn’t manage to apply the idea or his enthusiasm to our own closets. “And how exactly would it help us?”

He looked at me quizzically, probably trying to figure out how a person who seems to have at least a moderate intellectual capacity could be so totally dense.

“Nevermind,” he sighed. “We can talk about it after you’ve had some more coffee.”

Which is never a bad plan of action, where I am concerned.

I’ve written about my inability to organize things here before. And I admit, it’s really a problem. For awhile, after we moved into the new house, we had so much more storage that my ineptitude wasn’t as obvious. In fact, there are so many drawers in the kitchen that I couldn’t even fill them all up. But empty drawers didn’t seem right at all. My solution? Multiple junk drawers. A kids’ junk drawer; a Me junk drawer; a junk drawer for rarely used items; a takeout-menu-and-school-stuff junk drawer; a junk drawer for coupons and stamps.

The Daddy finally caught on. “You know,” he said, “we really don’t need FIVE junk drawers.”

“But what else am I going to do with all that space?”

“There could be organized drawers, with specific purposes.”

“They are, kind of!” I proceeded to show him the loosely defined purpose of each drawer.

“But why are there rolls of Scotch tape in every drawer?”

“Because I always need tape at the last minute when I’m trying to wrap a gift before we rush out the door on our way to some party or another. If there’s tape all over the place, then I don’t have to open all the drawers looking for tape. Whatever drawer I open, BAM!  Tape is there!”

He looked at me with what could be best described as loving pity. “But couldn’t you put all of them in one drawer and then remember which drawer is the drawer that contains five rolls of tape?”

“Well, you nailed the problem right there…I would have to remember which drawer they’re in. You can see my dilemma.”

Indeed, he did not see my dilemma. I am lucky he loves me so much.

I predict that if I have to add remembering where the tape lives to all of the other important things I have to remember, something else is bound to suffer. Perhaps I’ll forget to close the garage door, or Benjamin will go to school without pants on, or I’ll wear mismatched shoes to work, and it will all be because that part of my brain was replaced by remembering where the tape resides.

I’m sure you’re thinking I’m just being dramatic here, but consider this: Last week, we decided to start allowing the dog free roaming privileges while we’re gone from the house (we previously crated her so she didn’t eat the drywall or the carpet or whatever she might do while she was still in the puppy phase). My morning routine when leaving the house was 1) get the kids’ shoes/coats/hats on, 2) get my stuff on, 3) gather lunches/backpacks/my purse, 4) throw a protein bar and my cell phone into my purse, 5) put the dog in her kennel, 6) turn off the kitchen light and shove gently guide the kids out the door with all of our various bags.

For some reason, not doing 5) put the dog in her kennel short-circuited my brain such that I was no longer able to remember my cell phone and protein bar.  I forgot those things for 2 or 3 days until my brain was able to build a bridge and get over it.

I’d like to think it will someday get better, but in reality it will likely get worse as I get older. I can just see myself, a little old toothless lady in a muumuu, wandering around our organized closet yelling, “WHERE’S THE TAPE AT, DADDY?!” and The Daddy shouting in my “good” ear, “IT’S IN THE KITCHEN! IN ONE OF YOUR DRAWERS. REMEMBER?” I’ll insist that I AM in the kitchen, and then he’ll have to convince me that I’m not and remind me where the kitchen is located. Exhausted by the mental strain, I’ll probably just lie down and watch Wheel of Fortune instead.

That man is a living saint, I tell you. A living saint.