NOT THERE, HERE!

There are times I have great objection to free will. Not for myself mind you, but for some of the others. THEY need structure, a controlled environment, and limited choices. I know the desire will never be fulfilled so I am the one who had to deal with it.

Several of us were talking today about the why of various behaviors. Hazel’s compulsive behavior stretches in so many areas. The general category of behavior fits into “everything in its place and nothing out of place.” Items placed on a bulletin board must be uniformly arranged. Edges and tops organized in a straight line. She reorganized five signs in the laundry room into a perfectly straight line with all the tops even at the top and evenly spaced.

One lady bought two used lawn chairs for our front porch. They show wear and tear and are somewhat faded. Admittedly not the most beautiful chairs, but they serve a purpose. We have several beautiful teak benches and chairs that are screwed down to the porch. Unfortunately these are not as comfortable at the cheap lawn chairs. Several gather on the front porch in the cool of the evening. The lawn chairs let us make a bit of a circle so we are not sitting in a row like pigeons on a line.

Hazel, apparently, does not like the chairs. Sometime after we leave, she moves the chairs off the porch and over by the garden. Someone in our group moves them back every evening. There is no discussion, no argument, just the never-ending movement from let to tight and right to left and back again.

One person has added a blue Pepsi 64oz. tray stashed between the benches and chairs. The tray is moved every day. Whoever placed the tray there in the first places seems to move it left, right, left right. Another on going circle of death. Annoying and petty, but there are a few for whom that seems to be their world. WHY?

For some it is order and structure. Some do it for control. Others do it for spite. Some because the item in question is there must move it. I know there are other possibilities, but these four cover all the reasons it is happening here. The games are going to continue until someone is evicted. Not that that would disappoint some of us.

It’s like having someone following you around and correcting your every move. During the brief period that my daughter and I lived together before her marriage we had a small conflict. It began simply enough. She would finish eating and place her dishes in the dishwasher. An act I appreciated. Then for some inexplicable reason she changed and was leaving her dishes in the sink. That annoyed me. We had to talk. Why aren’t you putting your dishes in the dishwasher any more? Why should I? You just rearrange where I put everything? Whoops. The action was so unconscious I didn’t realize what I was doing. She had a great point. That shook me out of my corrective stupor but fast. If you want to have a good relationship — allow freedom to others. That may all be good and well, but I can get more dished in a dishwasher than my daughter.