Barbara Would Be Proud
Posted by AndyFan: There are few in Andy’s life who can whirl through and cause more excitement and yet somehow leave the place tidier than before they arrived. And that my good Andyfriends, is no small feat. First of all, very few are more exciting than Andy. But more importantly, if any of you have had the fortune of working on any one of the plethora of projects that Andy has helmed, have had a chance to visit him when he is relaxing at home, or have merely taken a ride with him in the Grand Marquis of the moment, you have no doubt witnessed the unfolding of his entire life before you. Not an unfolding like an unraveling or falling apart. This unfolding is more like using one of those mini-pocket maps, the ones that only fit in yor wallet if you put it there the second you purchase it and store it away with your change. Do not open it, it will never go back to its intended place again. You will never fit it in your wallet once you have even just flipped a corner up to look. You may even throw it across the street once you realize that it is no longer the size of a credit card but rather as thick as War and Peace, only to need it five minutes later and have to walk back and look all over for it to no avail, return to the place of purchase, acquire another at the same price, start back on your path, only to trip over the first copy of War and Peace and kick it, for not showing up sooner, stub your toe, scream an expletive or two, throw the newer, unopened copy of War and Peace past the the first one that you kicked, find a seat, look around to see if there are any loyal subjects to go retrieve both copies, one to possibly even return the second copy that was unused though slightly scuffed from sliding across the floor, read the first copy from beginning to end, figure out which direction you should be going in, point you in that direction and walk you there, simply because they should enjoy your company. That is the unfolding that I am referring to.
To apply this to Andy imagine a room. Now fill this room from bottom to top. In fact, fill it again. Ok, one more time. Now take the contents that are filling the room, put them in nicely separated plastic bins, the ones that stack, condensing the objects in possession to a fraction of their original size and shove them ever so gently into the spare room. The one that was not opened yet. Like the mini-pocket map, this must be done at the time of aquisition. Any time after and it would be too late. Once stored in said room, refill the first room in the same manner, store new material in bins and find a way to get them into the same spare room. Then hit play and watch Andy go. More than likely he will need the very object that arrived first, the one that is all the way at the bottom of the spare room, all the way in back, under every other bin. Only Andy holds the key to how the bins are organized, however, that too is in one of the bins. So now the hunt is on for the object of desire and/or the key to where that object lies. Bins are opened. They overflow into the outer room, expanding to their original size. Actually, all the bins are opened, each and every one of them. Filling all areas of the space that was for one moment organized. This is when it happens. Barbara arrives.
Barbara, a.k.a. Mother, is made of a different cloth than Andy; a more pressed and tidy cloth. Anything in Andy’s life that has ever warranted a complaint from our hero is due, if you ask Mother, to the fact that he kept an untidy room as a child. A movie project goes sour—he should have picked up his toys when he was five; stubs his toe—he should have made his bed as a teen; falls down and breaks his arm, well, he should have cleaned the stairwell, otherwise he wouldn’t have tripped over all that stuff and fallen down and broken his arm. Arriving at the moment that he has unfolded his entire life into two rooms only compounds her belief. She has offered to help, but he knows that his life would only be less, complete, if she were to come to his aid. In fact it would just be less. Stories of Star Wars toys found in the garbage due to the lack of placement in his room only bring fears of what prop, puppet or movie memoriabilia would go missing if Mother were to “help.” She means well. She always means well.
Well Barbara, I am happy to inform you that all your hard work may have paid off. Andy has taken a liking to a clean home. It is the theme of this blog in fact. No, really, the actual WordPress Theme, Clean Home. He had no idea. He just liked it. For some reason completely foreign to him. And the good news is, things have to go where they belong, otherwise he can’t show them to the world. And that would make him very unhappy. So in fact, it makes him happy to be so organized. And that should make you proud.