When I was a child my mother would often say, “A place for everything and everything in its place” when urging us to put things away. For reasons I cannot explain I thought this was from Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood” but I have just discovered, thanks to the internet, it turns out it’s Benjamin Franklin, which seems far more likely. Anyhow like all my parents’ well used phrases, it seems to have burrowed its way into my own family life.
Recently, herself was unable to find some item despite my well honed tidying techniques, “A place for everything and nothing in its place,” she harrumphed. “That’s harsh,” I said. “This place is a finely tuned disaster zone,” she replied. Little does she know that, if experience with our parents is anything to go by, it will only get worse.