The Education of Man

Hope you enjoy this from my August, 1999 journal -

All summer long I struggled trying to teach my (grown-up) guys where to put their dirty clothes. When out of the blue, I came up with an idea! I decided to make signs on my computer. After all, technology is the name of the game today.

I made a sign for each of the three hampers in the laundry room. The blue hamper read “dark colored work clothes in here”; the white hamper read “light colored work clothes in here” (seems logical, doesn’t it?). The green hamper read “good clothes of any color in here” (I’ll admit that might throw someone off).

I even opened the lids on the hampers.

Then, the most awesome thing happened. For the next twenty-four hours there were no dirty clothes on the floor in front of the hampers, no clothes on top of the closed hamper, and all the dirty clothes were where they belonged.

You can only imagine what this led to.

I thought to myself, “If they can read these signs, they can read other signs.”

I quickly fired up the ‘puter to make a sign for the hamper in the bathroom – “washcloths and towels in here”. I was on a roll. I couldn’t stop. A “nothing goes here” sign was attached to the wall in the bathroom, next to the hamper, visibly prohibiting anyone from putting their clothes on the floor next to the hamper. By the way, why do they do this?

For twenty-four more hours everything was where it belonged.

For a brief moment, my hopes were high. Visions of an orderly house were rampant in my mind. I even considered making signs for the bathroom vanity reading “contact solution in here’; “hairbrush in here” – the list in my mind went on and on.

Then, just as quickly as it started, it abruptly ended. My realm as queen of the orderly house was over. Reality set in quite rapidly and quite frankly, things went right back to normal.

The education of man. Short-lived.