Too Organized?

I think I have finally happened upon a reason that sometimes, being organized can be a bad thing. Maybe not bad, but surely not-so-good.

That reason is: Having a Spouse Who Does Not Believe in Organization.

Let me explain. My husband is not organized. God love him, I think he wants to be. I believe that he sees the virtue in organization. He tries. I've seen him work for hours in his garage, trying to organize, but all that usually happens is that the same stuff is now in neat stacks. It's not any more organized than it was before, it just looks neater. He still has no idea where the hammer or tennis balls are, but dangit, they look nice.
It drives me nuts that he never knows where anything is. I always know where things are. If you ask me where Reese's left Dora shoe is, I will tell you that it is underherbedbecauseshe droppeditduringhernapyesterday. I can find things. Unless HE has touched them. If he has touched something of mine, it's a crap shoot as to whether or not I will ever see it again. Normally, I am ashamed to admit, I speak to him in a rather condescending way on this subject. It's not becoming of me, I realize, but I think I'm right, so I justify it.
Well now, I'm here to apologize for being so rigid in my beliefs and for making him feel bad when he loses my stuff.

This morning, when I couldn't find my keys, I panicked. I woke the kids up later than usual because they were up half the night acting like nut jobs, so I let them sleep in. I decided I would drive rather than walk today. I just assumed that I would grab my keys and walk out the door at 7:35, as usual.
What I forgot was that He had my keys last night after our walk to the tennis courts. He and Rhett came home without the girls and I, so I never saw where he put my keys. This morning, at 7:35 on the dot, I reached for my keys in their regular spot on the counter. Nope.
The only other spot they can be is in my purse. I try not to drop them in my purse because then I have to dig in my purse as I'm walking out the door, but sometimes it happens. Only this morning, they weren't there. I went back to my regular "key spot" on the counter. Still not there. And back to the purse. Nope.
After searching the entire kitchen, I gave up. If they aren't here, they aren't anywhere. Seriously, people. This is where I give up. I can't wrap my brain around something being in the wrong place. And I have three kids and a disorganized husband. So you can see why my brain doesn't work. These people I live with are screwing with me.

So therein lies the problem in being organized: If something isn't where it belongs, I have no idea where to begin looking. I'm at a complete loss. It's like I keep going back to the place where it belongs, just expecting that the object will magically appear there. But it must be here. This is where it goes.
If anyone is home when I am on one of these fruitless searches, I will tell them, 400 times: "(The object) isn't where it belongs. It goes right here. This is why everything has a place."
I bet they hate me.
I finally found the keys IN Aaron's bowl of junk on the counter. I had to put this bowl there because he unloads all of this things in 40 different places in the kitchen and bathroom if I don't. And then he has to spend 10 minutes gathering it all together the next morning. So the bowl is the Consolidation Point for Aaron. (See how condescending that is? God, I can be a witch.)
But I would never check the bowl for my things, because the bowl is for Aaron's things. I would never put my things in that bowl. So my keys would never be in there.
Except that they were. And it only took me 12 minutes to figure that out. Twelve minutes on an otherwise perfectly timed morning. We were almost late. Thankfully, I organize my time pretty well too, so I always leave 5-7 minutes to spare. (I hate how this is making me sound.)

So see? There is such a thing as being too organized. If you are so organized that you forget how to search for lost items, then you are too "together." You need to relax and lose some things to re-train yourself in the art of the search. I plan to test myself today looking for 3 lost socks that have been plaguing me for at least the past 6 cycles of laundry. I will begin by searching in the kids' toy boxes. I know they don't belong there, but that's all part of the testing. Thinking outside the box. Or, in this case, outside the laundry basket.

Hope your Monday is as titillating as mine!