It’s difficult to communicate with people when they don’t speak the same language. As an “IT” guy, I go through this all the time. When you say, “do you see an icon in the toolbar,” and they reply with “what’s a toolbar,” you know you’re in for a tough time. But that’s not nearly as bad as when you think you’re speaking the same language, and it turns out the same words mean something completely different to the person you’re talking to. For instance, there’s the word “organized.”

To me, organized means you know where stuff is, and it’s easy to get at. Ideally, it’s even more or less in the vicinity of where you need to use it (which is not to say that I’m always successful at being organized, because, between being basically lazy and struggling with what I can only assume is early-onset Alzheimer’s, I’m not). To others, however, the word “organized” represents an unattainable state of Nirvana where everything is underneath 50 other things in a box at the bottom of a stack of ten boxes in a closet somewhere. Oh, and the boxes are labeled.

For instance, to me, putting, oh, say, my keys and BlackBerry on the kitchen table (a mere one or two steps from the door to the garage) when I come home at night is pretty gosh darn organized. There they are, right where I can see them, ready for me to pick up on my way out the door in the morning. Walk in, put the keys on the table. Ready to leave? Pick up the keys on my way out. A simple yet elegant solution.

To others, however, this is the antithesis of organization – preventing us from reaching Nirvana. This atrocity can only be rectified by the act of hiding my shit somewhere else so it “doesn’t get lost” without telling me “I’m hiding your shit over here so it doesn’t get lost.” I do, of course, appreciate the sentiment and concern for me losing my shit (which I do – all by myself – quite often). However, not only does this not match my definition of organization, but, when you’re running late in the morning, it can lead to an unnecessary level of annoyance, angst, aggravation, and anger (plus a great deal of throwing shit all over the place). Not a good way to start your work day.

Another example would be the coffee filters and little cup I use to measure the amount of beans required to make a decent-tasting pot of coffee. To me, being organized means keeping the cup and filters together on a shelf in the cupboard. To others, however, this isn’t good enough, because, while they are in the cupboard, they aren’t inside of something else. So they must be placed inside a stack of bowls in the same cupboard, thereby rendering them inaccessible without pulling out the entire stack of bowls first (turning a two-step process – pull out the filters and cup, then put them back – into a four-step process – pull out the whole stack, grab the filters, put the bowls back, then, finally, put the filters and cup back). In other words, my way is more efficient.

I try and keep my life simple and efficient (especially in the morning, when even simple things seem complicated). To that end, I multitask whenever possible. For instance, I’ll floss my teeth and/or put on deodorant while sitting on the crapper. This – for obvious reasons – requires that the floss and deodorant be within arm’s reach of the toilet. An “organized” solution is to have them both sitting out in plain sight on the vanity (where they take up next to no space), not hidden in the medicine cabinet amongst the 427 jars of moisturizer, skin tightener, Spackle, and whatever the hell else that stuff in those expensive-looking little jars is.

Now, I’m not saying one way is the “right” way and the other is wrong. That would be judgmental, and I, for one, am anything but judgmental. Nor am I implying that it’s a male/female thing (though I might postulate that women have a “nesting” instinct that make them want to put shit inside of other shit, and then take that shit and put it inside of something else, and don’t seem to mind having to take everything out of the cupboard to get at the one goddamn thing you need in the the back, whereas men – due to their basic plumbing – have become accustomed to things being convenient located and easy to access).

All I’m sayin’ is that when two otherwise reasonable people have completely different definitions of certain basic concepts, life can get a little complicate.

Oh well, I guess I better get going. Gotta find my keys.