House of Filth

Once again I found myself sitting in front of the television with Doctor Phil involuntarily thrust upon me because I dropped my guard and let Mark get control of the remote. His show was about some woman who hoarded things, all sorts of things. She had eleven refrigerators full of rotting food, mounds of boxes and bags, there were plastic containers scattered everywhere. It was so bad, that her children only had a small space on the living room sofa for sleeping. I agree that the woman was mentally ill, but I don't think that the 'Hillbilly Shrink', Doctor Phil, is necessarily the guy to straighten her out.

I of course, took this opportunity to drive home the point to Mark, that he isn't really so far away from her condition. For instance, Mark has at least two hundred cook books ranging from gourmet, to backyard grilling, to recreating fast food in your own home. He also collects gadgets for the kitchen whose purpose I often haven't a clue. If I look deep enough in his gadget drawer, I can find five different ways to open a bottle of wine. Other times I can go through five different can openers before I find one that is simple enough for me to successfully operate. Every single shelf and counter in the kitchen is crammed with crap and bric-a-brac of all kinds.

Now I know that books and gadgets aren't the same as trash piled up around the house, but to a man who is half blind (me), less is more. The less clutter, the better I can see what I'm doing, it's that simple.One place that I seem to have made some progress is Mark's mop collection. Yes, he buys a new mop every time they come up with a new gimmick. At one point we had about twenty mops out on the back porch, because Mark would use one and put it out to dry, never to be used again. Over the last few months I have been putting one a week in the garbage can. At the present time there are only three mops left, and Mark hasn't even asked what happened to the rest of them. I think we'll be relatively mop free for awhile, that is until BILLY MAYS comes up with another breakthrough in mop technology.