Housekeeping

In our condo apartment everything has its appointed place.  Efficient, neat, orderly.  My husband who was the department head of foreign language programs in a series of top notch public schools is especially good at keeping order, if I were more honest, I might say frighteningly so.  He has the demeanor of the high school hall monitor who checks to see if you have the pass to leave the classroom to use the toilet.  Though I am more sloppy, let's call it "more creative," my years of department chair have also kept me on the side of compulsive, although hubby sneeringly reminds me that I always had a secretary to keep order.  I am reminded of the bright and negative sides of this personality quirk? disorder? almost every morning when  I cover two pieces of toast with peanut butter for my breakfast.  Above the counter opposite the sink is a cupboard on the first shelf of which are stored a variety of containers used in stove cooking or storing foods once cooked.  Above that on the second shelf are various food stuffs used as they are, one of them being the jar of peanut butter.  Because we get the healthiest the oil is separated and needs to be worked in.  I just keep it tightly sealed and upside down and set it in a saucer with a paper towel in it in case of leakage.  This has been our practice forever, well, for a decade.  This morning I got up late and thus everything was seen in a new perspective.  And I had to ask myself: why does an old man who has minimal strength in his feeble old arms reach up much too high above his shoulder level to take hold of a somewhat greasy jar which is relatively heavy (since his spouse cannot bring himself to buy the smaller container and thus most expensive) from its place on a shelf irrationally  and unstrategically (probably not even a word) positioned to begin with?  Well, I can no more answer that than I can think to rearrange the items of the kitchen.  It is at these moments that I have those flash visions of the police breaking into the place after having been called by the neighbors because of the smell and discovering the utter disarray of items littering  every surface and crammed into every cupboard.