Who are you calling tidy?

You lookin' at me?

A while back, my landlady asked if she could come up while I was gone and clean the filters on the air conditioners.  Yes, I said, sure.  So, she did. 

She lives behind me, and, a few days later, I met her at the mailboxes.

            “I changed the filters,” she said.

            “Thank you.”

            “You keep your place very tidy,” she said.

            “I do?”

            “Yes.  Other tenants haven’t been as tidy as you.

            I walked away, disturbed.  She called me tidy.  Tidy.  That sent an electric current of rebellion through me.  Tidy?!!??  Neat, maybe.  Clean.  Organized.  Orderly.  But TIDY?!!??  Fussy people are tidy. Finicky people. The anal-retentive.

            Not only that, the word tidy evokes a man obsessed with minutiae, someone who walks around the apartment adjusting things on the table that are slightly out of line.  Who blanches at a poster that is a bit askew.  Who even arranges food in his refrigerator in a certain orderly fashion, the rules of which are known only to him. (You want the mayo? Second shelf, two bottles in, next to artichoke hearts. Reason supplied upon request.)

            This tidiness seems to me to be the opposite of what it means to be an artist, a writer.  Which I am. If I’m tidy, how can I be great?!!??  What greatness comes from tidiness?  If cleanliness is next to Godliness, what is tidiness next to?  Goody-ness??? Did anyone ever call Hemingway tidy? Faulkner?

Hemingway’s desk. Very un-tidy.

           I try.  I do.  I leave the bed unmade. 

            For a few hours.

            I leave books on the floor. Clothes strewn across the couch.  Dishes unwashed.  Toothpaste without the top screwed on.

Picasso’s studio. What a mess.

            But by some unknown force or miracle or unseen hand, all that becomes straightened out and arranged, seemingly by itself, before too long.

            Once someone got into my car, a 2010 Ford Focus, and commented,

            “Does anyone ride in this but you?”

            “What?  What do you mean?”

            “It’s so neat and clean.”

            “It’s not neat!  Look at that stain on the seat.”

            “What stain?”

            “There.”

            “I can’t see…”

            “There, for God’s sakes!

            “I think that’s part of the fabric design.”

            “No! It’s not! I distinctly remember the day I spilled a few drops of that Coke. It was a few years ago. Sunday, I think.”

“How can you remem….”

“Put on your seat belt, please.”

You decide. Judge for yourself.  Come on in. Take a look at my apartment.  Would you call it “tidy”? 

Now that you’re here, do you think the curtains are all the same length?