Integration is not always a good thing.
We’ve been married for 17 years. The closet is mixed with each of our clothes, the bathroom sink is a cluster of “his and hers” utensils. Her space is mine and my space is hers. Our bank accounts were merged when we got engaged. We have been blended into one unit with one exception; until now.
The CD/DVD rack was the last hold-out of “my” space. The last bastion of order in a house full of feminine chaos energy. With the new house comes new organization. All her DVDs have now been mixed in with mine.
I’ve kept my collection neat and clean for years. The stickers meticulously peeled off so they won’t leave any residue. The store RFIDs removed from behind the cardboard or under the plastic. Every disc is aligned to be face up and right-side up when opened.
Her collection has not been cared for in the same manner. Some of the stickers are merely sliced open and remain hanging on either side of the case like unhealed flesh at an open wound. Her DVDs are slapped in their holders haphazardly, the writing is often crooked or even upside down.
The new neighbors have moved in and they have lowered the property values to that of a trailer park.
“Logan’s Run” now resides next to “The Lizzie McGuire Movie”. “When Worlds Collide” is now neighbors with “What a Girl Wants”. Two of my favorite movies, “American History X” and “American Psycho” are now separated by the “American Pie” trilogy. Pie fucker!
“The Dirty Dozen” and “The Doors” are split by “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “Chasing Amy” is now followed by “Cheaper by the Dozen”. Not the acceptable Myrna Loy version. The crappy Steve Martin version.
Worst of all, I have been forced to add a third “Hamlet” to my shelves: Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh and now Mel Gibson. Oh the horror!
She will never infiltrate my CD collection. With all my music digitized and secure on my hard drives, I keep the CDs boxed up and away from her Madonna and her Paula Abdul. All of them arraigned alphabetical and then chronological, and all is right with the world…
Leave a Reply