shoe monster

january -- being the resolution-filled month that it is -- is often a month of sheer joy to us "martha"-wannabes.

after the mess that spells christmas is put away (and organized in tupperware plastic totes. contents labeled, of course.) the ads and magazines are again flowing with ways to combat clutter, organize your life, organize your eating habits, organize your spending habits. really, for control freaks like myself, this is pure heaven.

in drooling over the latest wall systems and baskets to tame the clutter, i read some interesting tips to help combat the "drop it like its hot" behavior that leads to mounds of clutter accumulating in the first place.

the one suggestion that struck me was the suggestion to have a silent butler, a basket that would collect anything left lying where it didn't belong. after being collected, its owner would need to negotiate its release with extra chores, vacations, diamonds, etc. the silent butler as terrorist captor, i'm guessing.

i laughed as i read the suggestion, because while the idea sounds simple, sometimes there needs to be the threat of actual harm before the threat can be taken seriously.

take, for instance, the shoe monster who lives in my house. my husband grew up in a house where clean underwear and socks were routinely washed, dried, folded and then simply left on the living room sofa for its owner to claim. and the laundry didn't get put away if company came over. the underwear just got moved aside so the guest could sit down NEXT to the piles of laundry. (sometimes i swear we grew up on different planets.)

in my husband's case, years of training and conditioning drills are slowly sinking in. i still find the occassional dress shirt and tie left in the garage, or tie in the crisper bin of the refrigerator, but overall i think the success of his training can only be attributed to the shoe monster.

the shoe monster is similar to the silent butler. but unlike the silent butler, the shoe monster doesn't negotiate, he only takes prisoners. and he certainly doesn't take bribes.

shoe monster moved into our first house shortly after we got married. the shoe monster understood my frustration at picking up pairs of my husband's shoes that quickly colonized our living room. under the sofa. under the chair. each night another pair left behind until it got to the point where he didn't look for shoes in his closet. he just went to the living room. that's when shoe monster heard my cry.

each night after my husband went to bed and his shoes left unguarded, the shoe monster crept in and stole the unsuspecting shoes left under the sofa and behind the lamp.

"help us," they cried but the shoe monster shushed them. "you cry to the same owner who abandoned you? stupid sneaker." and with that, the shoe monster wisked the abandoned shoes out of sight. and into the trunk of my car.

because my husband has roughly the same amount of shoes as carrie bradshaw did on "sex and the city", the shoe monster's impact wasn't immediate. it took many weeks before the missing shoes finally went, well, missing.

he'd walk out from the bedroom, half-dressed in his suit wondering wear his black dress shoes went. i'd casually reply, "the shoe monster must have them. if you didn't leave them out where they didn't belong, shoe monster wouldn't have had the chance to eat them."

silly silent butler, organization negotiations are for kids.