Friday, February 29, 2008

Dirty vs. Messy

I think everyone falls into one of two categories: neat freaks and non-neat freaks. I’m not saying the non-neat freaks (such as myself) live in filthy pigstys, but they definitely have lower standards of what they consider “clean”.

The difference is in how you define “clean”. Neat freaks define it as spotless surfaces - no clutter, no dust, no smell. To them, “dirty” and “messy” and indistinguishable. My sweety will look at the living room one weekend and declare that it was dirty. I would look at it, see the few cups and tissues laying around, and reply that it was only slightly messy, but not dirty. Had there been mud tracked onto the rug or spills on the table, then I would have called it dirty. Messy means things are a little disorganized, but generally still clean - you won’t get dirty by hanging out in that living space.

In this case, I think tidying up a bit is in order, but not necessarily cleaning the house. Not so for my sweety, who is quite the stickler for neatness. Whether it’s messy or dirty or whatever, it doesn’t matter. You clean the house. It used to be a point of contention because she would always see dust and I would, admittedly, always turn a blind eye to it. I can’t help it. Dust doesn’t bother me. It always comes back, so why fight it?

The way people define “dirty” and “messy” occurred to me this morning when a coworker said her desk was dirty and then went off to find the Simple Green. I looked at her desk and only saw a bunch of papers and folders. For me, stacking them all together would have solved the problem, especially since she already Simple Greened her desk a few days ago. The funny thing was, after she cleared off the papers, I saw the big, pink strawberry juice stain in one corner. Turned out her desk was dirty after all, even by my standards.