Breakin' ALL the Rules!

A lot of my friends think I'm a little too organized. They think that it is funny that all of my shirts are hung facing the same way, arranged by color and that all of the hangers are one inch apart. They laugh that all of the cans in my pantry are in straight rows with all of the labels facing front or that my liquor cabinet is similarly arranged as well as by type and brand. A couple of wise asses actually call me Adrian (Monk).

I can't help it if I have a certain sense of order. Toilet paper should always roll off the top of the dispenser. Why would I keep half of my chicken in one part of the freezer and the other half with the frozen veggies? Do I gain anything if my crystal ware touches each other in the cabinet? What's the difference if I use shoe trees for deck shoes and sneakers? So what If I starch the collars on my Hawaiian shirts?

The other day the petite red head asked me if she could smoke in my car. I told her she was smokin' wherever she was. When I stopped laughing at my own joke she said, "No, really. Can I smoke in your car?"

So I answered her question with another question. "Why do you feel like you have to ask me that?"

"Well," she said, "I didn't want to break one of your rules."

That stopped me dead in my tracks. Finally I said, "Of course you can smoke in my car. I do all of the time. But, more importantly, you need to know that I don't have any rules that you can't break."

"Really?" she answered.

"Really." I responded.

Suddenly it seemed like she was looking at me for the first time. A soft, lazy grin spread slowly across her gentle features, her hazel eyes glowing with mischief. "I'll be right back." she said. With that she grabbed the keys to the golf cart and ran out the front door.

When I followed her to the door I saw that she was starting up the golf cart that I had carefully backed into my driveway and had parked parallel with the walkway and precisely two feet from the garage door. The front wheels perfectly straight, the steering wheel aligned like the face of a clock.

She pulled the cart into the street, did a quick U-turn and reparked it at an angle across the driveway, partially blocking my office door, the wheels turned the whole way to the left. When she came back she tossed the keys on the end table, rather than hanging them up on the left-most hook where they belonged.

She gave me a little kiss and said, "I've been wanting to do that for weeks!"

As I stood inside the front door, looking at the chaos across the street, my hand on the door knob, my whole body slightly vibrating, I heard her in the kitchen moving my coffee maker three inches to the left and slightly askew with the wall.

Finally I muttered to myself, "Rules are just rules - but some things are just crazy!"

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