Excerpt of Be My Neat-Heart by Judy Baer

A girl could get killed on a job like this.

I dived out of the way as an avalanche of Tupperware fell out of Mrs. Fulbright's cupboard directly toward my head. In my escape I tripped on a cardboard box full of parts- missing appliances and barely caught myself on the cluttered kitchen counter. The woman owns more foam meat trays than a chain of butcher shops and every margarine tub that ever crossed her threshold. Not only that, I'm considering nominating her for the Cool Whip Container Hall of Fame.

"You aren't planning to throw those out, are you?" Mrs. Fulbright peered doubtfully into a stack of the plastic bowls. In the top bowl the carcass of a house fly was resting in peace. It was clear she hadn't had these out of the cupboard since Granny of The Beverly Hillbillies and the transplanted social-ite on Green Acres were homemaking role models. "I've been thinking of taking up watercolor painting. I'll need them to wash out my brushes."

Maybe. If you're recreating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on the roof of the Metrodome. "Remember the vision you created for yourself, Mrs. Fulbright?" I asked gently. "The dream you've always had?"

She looked at me glassy-eyed, her attention still fixed on the hundreds of ways old food containers could be made into soap dishes, shower slippers and patio furniture. Simple as it might seem to others, wrenching these years of accumulation away from her was a little like ripping out her heart. Even though she'd hired me to do it, it had to be done with compassion. My job as a professional organizer is part coach, champion, cheerleader, friend, objective thinker and part cleaning lady. Interesting, isn't it, how God designs us for a purpose? For me, an incorrigible neatnik, this is the perfect occupation.

I love it when He does this stuff. "Vision'? Oh, yes. Never again being hit on the head with an aluminum pie plate," she parroted without conviction. "No more stacking glasses five deep and being unable to pull them apart. Room for the set of dishes my daughter gave me for Christmas. No more stitches in my head when serving platters fall on me." She looked longingly at the yellowed plastic containers with which she'd bonded. "But it seems like such a waste to throw them away."

"Don't worry." I opened another cupboard to reveal a stash of empty squeezable bears, the kind honey comes in. "You'll still have these."

When I pulled away from the Fulbrights', my car was full of black lumpy garbage bags. In serious cases like that of Mrs. Fulbright, I always take the garbage bags away with me so as to prevent my client from having a panic attack in the night and rescuing the detritus.

Samantha Is My Name, Busting Clutter Is My Game....

I scratched out that line in my notebook and tried again.

In Two Hours or Less I'll Un-muddle Your Mess.... False advertising.

Tired of being left out of the neatness game? Call Samantha Smith, professional Clutter Coach.

Too kitschy?

Got Chaos? Call Clutter Busters! "What are you doing, Sam?" My receptionist/secretary/Jill-of-all-trades/clutter- buster-in-training Theresa Wilcox stooped to peer over my shoulder as I wrote.

"I'm trying to create a catchy tagline for a radio advertisement. I'm buying time during the morning commute starting next Monday, targeting harassed commuters who are running late because they couldn't find their kids' homework, their shoes or their briefcases."

"So you're after ninety percent of the country's working population?" Theresa snapped her ever-present chewing gum.

"This morning I couldn't even find my kid. How was I supposed to know that Hannah had packed her own lunch and was waiting for me in the car?"

"Maybe I hired the wrong member of your family," I sighed. Theresa is a gem, but she's not naturally gifted with the neatness gene that runs in my family. By the time I was five years old, I could sort laundry — polyester and cotton, whites, darks, reds, denims, delicates and towels — and tell the difference between the mushroom soup and the tomato and put them in their appropriate places in the pantry. I also had my Barbie doll's clothing sorted by season, event — dressy, casual, dates with Ken — and color. I still miss poor old Ken. I can't believe she broke up with him after all these years.

Or maybe I'm just jealous that a plastic doll with bubble hair has a better social life than I do. I admire Barbie's panache and boldness — dumping Ken and all — but I'm the kind of woman who sticks to what she knows. I've always played it safe and a little boring in the romance department. That's probably a commentary on my whole life. Being a professional organizer and clutter coach is a manifestation of my liking to have my world in order. Better safe than sorry is my motto. How pathetic is that?

"Want to hear what's on your agenda this week?" Theresa handed me a printout. "Mrs. Fulbright called. She was wondering if you'd already disposed of those garbage bags. Her neighbor told her about a way to make bird feeders out of the bleach bottles and she's having thrower's remorse."

Mrs. Fulbright thinks she wants to put her life in order but she's still having a love affair with her junk.

"What's this?" I pointed to today's three o'clock time slot. Carver Advertising — consultation requested. I was hoping to go home early and take a quick nap before dinner. I'd spent the entire night before dreaming about organizing the bathroom of a client who owns more inventory than Walgreens. Every time I turned my back on her makeup drawers, eyeliners would leap in with the lipsticks and cotton balls, and makeup sponges would proliferate like dust bunnies under a bed.

I'm an organizational consultant and clutter coach. What am I supposed to dream about, Brad Pitt?

"I'm not sure. A secretary called this morning and asked that you were to be there promptly at three — or else."

"Did she really say 'or else'?" I put a stray paper clip back in its appropriate container and flipped to a fresh page in my notebook. Theresa says my desk is a metaphor for my life — perfectly ordered, immaculately clean and totally predictable. I've thought of challenging her on that but, unfortunately, most of it is true. I'd like to think I'm at least a tiny bit unpredictable.

"She might as well have.You'd have thought she was setting up an audience with the Queen." Theresa's expression brightened. "Maybe you'll be hired to organize an entire company."

Theresa has great pipe dreams. Unfortunately, people usually don't realize how much they need me until they lose something really important, like the deed to their house or their diamond earrings. Then, unless they agree to clutter coaching and a class or two, as soon I come in to reorder their lives, they find the misplaced items and revert to their messy ways. You've definitely got to change a messie from the inside out.

A lightbulb went on in my brain.

Let Samantha Smith, organizational consultant and clutter coach, organize your world from the inside out!

My cell phone rang for the umpteenth time. "Your clutter is my business. May I help you?"

"How's my sweet little cluttermeister?" An amused voice tickled my eardrum. "Want some lunch?"

That teasing voice gets me every time. Picturing Benjamin Rand's soft curly brown hair, five o'clock shadow and crooked smile, I could practically hear him reeling me in. Still, I tried to resist. "Can't. I don't have time. I have an appointment this afternoon. A consultation. With a corporation."

Ben was typically unimpressed. "Stuffed shirts, brainwashed heads, robotic activities, corporate clutter. Cool. Not."

"Ben..."

"Besides, I've already got it cooked — almost. It will be ready when you get there. It's on The Timer."

"You know what happened last time you used The Timer...."

"Mere technical difficulty. I've addressed the fire safety issue. There will be no more fire trucks on the lawn or hoses in the living room, I promise."

One could only have this conversation with Ben and have it make sense. "Be here in twenty minutes and a gourmet feast awaits you." And without waiting for my reply, he hung up. Knowing he'd already decided I was coming and would refuse to pick up the telephone again, I succumbed to the lure of another meal made without the use of human hands.

Ben's place, a cozy bungalow-style house in south Minneapolis, is a solid, fifty-year-old stucco. It's a three-bedroom, single-bath home as typically traditional on the outside as it is atypical on the inside. I've known Ben for five years — ever since he bought the charmingly squat little house from my great aunt Gertie. Gertie, who feared being a "burden to family" in her old age, sold the house, bought a loft downtown and took off on a cruise of indefinite length. So far Gertie hasn't been a burden to anyone but Arthur Mason, the sweet seventysomething man she met in the cruise exercise class and promptly married.

Aunt Gertie has embraced this, her first marriage, like a bride fifty years younger. Poor Arthur has been the victim of Gertie's healthy cooking (miso soup, flounder and roasted cauliflower are her specialties), her constant redecorating of their loft (she's in an ultracontemporary phase right now and there is not a soft or rounded edge in the place) and healthy living (Arthur is currently enrolled in a kick-boxing class). When I'm her age, I want to be just like her.

The house must have a force field around it that attracts eccentrics. Otherwise, how could one home get two of them in a row — first Aunt Gertie and now Ben, who, among his other distinctions is a physicist, research scientist, inventor and inveterate chess player?

He's also a great friend. My mother wishes he were my boyfriend, but it's not going to happen. Ben's very much an "in the moment" type guy. He has to be. He'd probably blow himself up if he weren't paying attention at all times.

It comforts my mother to think that her nearly thirty-year- old daughter has a man in her life, so I don't burst her bubble and tell her that there is not even a remote possibility it could be Ben. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Mom and Dad live in Florida now, where Dad is president of a small Christian college, so she's not available for constant romantic input.

I love Ben, but I don't love Ben. He's a "space saver," like one of those promise rings young men give their girlfriends to wear on the ring finger of their left hands to save the space for something bigger and more permanent, like an engagement ring. Ben, who is a gem himself, is holding that space in my life right now. Frankly, I'm not sure if there is a diamond of a man out there for me. I worry about that sometimes — but not enough to do anything about it.

I jogged up the walk and entered the house without knocking. Ben bounded toward me and grabbed my hand. "Come see The Timer, it is operational."