What's that about rocks and glass houses?

Last night, I watched a show called Clean House. I don't know what's worse, the fact that I watched this show in the first place, or the fact that I watched it for a full hour.

The premise was taking a family living in utter filth and rewarding them with -- you guessed it -- a clean house. We're not talking a mildly unorganized house here -- God knows I'm not one to judge a few messy piles of paper or clothes on the floor. We're talking a full-on garbage dump masquerading as living quarters.

This family had so many clothes, so much junk, that they literally moved clothes piles in the living room every night to sleep on temporary beds, because they couldn't find the bed in the bedroom! Now that, my friends, is clutter!

(I'll admit it, I've got my own clutter. But I'm a considerate mess. My living room furniture, while not always spotless, is always accessible. You can get to it without without harming yourself. Just be careful opening the closet doors...)

Anyway, the decorating team convinced the family to sell the extra clothing and junk at a yard sale, then used the money to spruce up the place. It looked amazing at the end, and I thought maybe it wasn't such a bad deal for the family after all. I even toyed with embarrassing myself on national television if opening my closets resulted in a similarly remodeled home.

I couldn't stop thinking about the show all day today. I thought about how the host couldn't convince the mom to throw away any of the old clothes at first. It made her physically ill just thinking about it. Why is she holding on to all that crap? I wondered. How could she possibly need seven new still-in-the-package comforters?

Well, let's just say that I was feeling pretty good about myself and my domestic skills, especially compared to that messy family. But my superiority came to a screeching halt at lunch, which I spent at the car wash.

I was thumbing through my Oprah magazine, and saw the caption "See this movie!" The movie was Thank You for Smoking, and I realized I had seen this movie. A long time ago. I flipped back to the cover, and looked at the magazine date. It said March.

March 2006. That's right, I was reading a three-year-old magazine!

Suddenly I didn't feel so superior to the Clutter family. Turns out they aren't the only ones who have a hard time throwing things away.

(And boy, am I glad my Mom doesn't know how to leave comments here!)