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Shirley Whittington Parents and kids are doomed to struggle eternally about messy bedrooms. Parents like a casual yet well-organized look, enlivened by a few tasteful pennants and an artistically placed tennis racket. They paper the walls with ballerinas or racing cars, put up yards of shelving, and install hooks at convenient levels. In truth, most kids prefer the early sweatsock look. Some of those socks are really early. I have fished footwear out from under the bed that has been there so long it's too small for the owner. As far as kids are concerned, only two things in a bedroom need to be immediately accessible--the light switch and the stereo. Everything else exists to be layered with other things. The wall paper is quickly ob- scured by hockey posters and pictures of Who. The shelves hold empty pop cans and balled-up rugby shirts. The clothes hooks are used to drape patch cords and headphones on. Almost anything goes in the window-- anything except the carefully co-ordinated, mom-chosen drapes. Even in the most look-alike subdivisions, you can always tell which household includes a teen-ager. It's the place with the Canadian It never fails. Never fails. Every holiday season, my wife, in desperation at what's ahead. hurls herself into some PROJECT that discombobulates the household, turns her into - a vixen, and drives me right out of my skull. I well remember the year she decided to have some brickwork done in December. Of course, the weather turned wild, the bricklayer couldn't work, and we wound up with four thousand wet bricks in the back kitchen. Dripping and smelling like wet brick. Another time she decided to have the whole family for Christmas: her parents, aunts, and assorted relatives. By the time she'd finished scouring and scourging, that old house was shining like two bubbles in a chamber pot. and groaning in every board. That's the year the kitchen floor was waxed so highly, I dropped the turkey on it when I slipped en route to the dining-room. She didn't speak to me until about Valentine's Day. Sometimes, it's sewing. All else is forgotten as she tries to make clothes enough in three weeks for her daughter and grandboys to wear for a year. Material, tapes, patterns, pins and needles everywhere. And I have the wound-marks to prove it, should I pull my pants down. If she can't dream up something to push away the thoughts of Christmas, she'll tackle it head-on, with a baking spree. Every mixing flag draped across the upstairs window. It would be unfair to suggest that parents never have messy rooms. Our bedroom mixes the ambience of backstage at Minsky's Burlesque with an explosion in a garment factory. We too store unused clothing and overdue library books under the bed. We are no strangers to the art of hanging clothes from curtain rods and light fixtures. The difference is that we definitely plan to clean the place up, as soon as we have time or move, whichever comes first. Mess never seems to bother kids. They can live happily in chaos until it becomes nec- cessary to hire an archeologist to find them-- under all the offal layers. But "messy bedrooms bother mothers because we know that that hideous disorder signifies a parent who is too lazy to say "'Go up there and clean your room' a lot. Just last week I talked to a friend who said she thought her daughter was out until she looked in her room and saw a pile of dirty clothes moving. "'Then"' she said, "'I realized she was lying there on the floor, listening to her Walkman."' I tried to reassure her. I told her she was lucky the kid was in the clothes. If clothes move around by themselves, it's ex- terminator time, and that really wows the neighbours. I told her I knew how she felt. I used to worry about messy bedrooms too, but after a while I just closed the door--providing there was enough clearance on the floor. As it turned out, the kids didn't suffer any per- manent damage from spending all that time inside a giant Cuisinart. Actually, once they got out on their own with their own vacuum cleaners and Tidy-Bowl sets, they changed. Last week I visited three young men, all of who were at one time declared unclean by their parents. All three live away from home now, and I was prepared to find them half buried in unwashed laundry and dirty dishes. Such was not the case. The first lad welcomed me warmly and suggested I leave my boots in a tray in the outer hall so I wouldn't sear the hardwood. "My landlord's a neatness freak,"' he said. At the next place I visited, I tried to be helpful by putting away the dishes which were air-dried in a rack beside the sink. I just kind of shoved the mixing bowls into the bottom cupboard with the pots and pans the way I do at home. My son grabbed them. "They go Those clean-cut kids over here,' he said pointedly. "I-have a special shelf for them. Then I know where to find them when I need them." Finally I visited a dear nephew whose unorthodox housekeeping habits almost drove his mother to despair when he lived at home. I rushed up the stairs to his big bright flat and dumped my coat and parcels on the floor. Then | settled in the spotless kitchen. Before he put the coffee pot on, my nephew quietly hung up my coat and stowed my parcels safely in the bathroom where the cat couldn't get at them. (This flat is picturesque and the only door that shuts tightly is the one on the bathroom. ) So you see--all three are living tidy well ordered lives. Not one has beeh jailed for leaving his towel on the bathroom floor, and nor has any one of them been evicted for not making his bed. I suggest you think about all this--all of you out there in mum-and-dad-land. Your young people may be temporarily untidy, but it's not terminal. When they get their own nests they will not befoul them with candy wrappers and dirty clothes t Still--I suggest an advance phone call before you go down to the city to visit them bow] in the house is activated, the oven goes full blast eighteen hours a day, and if you're not stepping in butter, you're stepping in flour. while the fancy cookies, cakes and puddings pile up to the point where the in- mates of a logging camp couldn't eat them all. This Christmas, she outdid herself. Back in the fall, some idiot mentioned on the air that there were only eleventy-seven shopping days until Christmas. The old lady immediately went into a frenzy that would make a whirling dervish look like a statue. First, she went into her mechanic's routine. She bought a caulking gun, a wood chisel, a hammer, and a key-hole saw. All the door- knobs were to be changed, because they have a habit of coming away in your hand, a new lock put on the back door, though there was nothing wrong with the old one, except that you could open it with a credit card, and all the windows were to be insulated. Now, none of the doorknobs work at all, and you have to pull doors open with your toes or fingernails, the lock is on the back door and it's a dandy, but we have to leave the door braced open with a slipper when we go oul, so that we can get back in, and the wind coming in around the windows would make your hair stand on end. Halfway through this job, which is why it Frenzy's over (for another year)! wasn't finished, she declared the master bedroom must be painted. She got the ceiling done. with the resultant chaos of moving furniture and taking everything out of the closets, a half-day's job. Just then she was struck by a desire to start taking piano lessons after some years away from the machine. Anybody knows you can't paint and practise the piano at the same time. so she hired a chap to finish the painting. This made the bedroom so dazzling that the bathroom suddenly appeared sleezy, and it had to be painted. By some strange osmosis, this in turn made the kitchen woodwork ab- solutely shabby, and the paint job spread downstairs. Had your kitchen painted lately? I wasn't against having the woodwork done, but | can see no point in painting the insides of cup boards. She can. After they've been emptied and thoroughly washed. We have enough cupboards, in the front and back kitchen, to hold enough stuff to withstand a three-year's siege. As I write, it's all sitting in liquor boxes, on the kitchen floor, in the front hall, in the vestibule, the living-room and the basement If you want to make a sandwich, you go to the basement for bread, prowl through eighteen boxes to find a knife, look for the butter in the box with the winter boots, and find a slice of ham in a box on the attic stairs, in with the soap, the adhesive tape, and the thumb tacks You'd think that would be enough to keep Christinas at bay. Not at all. She suddenly decided that after 36 years of married something or other, we absolutely must get a stereo outfit, with cassette, the whole works Simple enough. We had only two hifi machines and a cheap cassette recorder For three weeks, | huddled in my chair in the living-room, surrounded by liquor boxes listening avidly while she experimented with two different sets of speakers, various microphones and about 300 yards of wire all over the floor Whichever speakers she liked, | eagerly agreed were the best. Then she'd change her mind. She wanted to get perfectly clearly the mistakes she made while practising the piano, in order to correct them It made u nice change, to be tripping over wire instead of stabbing my toe on a paint can, or stepping in my sock feet, on a chisel Of course, it all came right in the end. The turkey smelled of fresh paint, [was awakened every morning at 5 a.m. by a squeal of a microphone, and you still lock yourself in the bathroom if you pull on the knob 3ul the butter's back in the fridge. the grandboys have chipped all the fresh pain! away, and at last everything's back to nor mal Investor's Inquiry by Charles Colling This is a good time to take inventory of your safety deposit boxes. Many people have more than one box owing to the volume of paper that is being stored. _ Perhaps you are storing more than one certificate of the same stock-an accumulation of Bell shares for example. These can be registered in one certificate and still be as readily negotiable and save your valuable deposit box space at the same time. Your broker or banker can advise you on registration of these certificates. Perhaps you have old certificates that you are storing because you have no idea of their value. Now would be a good time to review these certificates and find out if they are worth the space they are occupying. Again, your broker can help you. Sort out your papers in your box - perhaps you are storing old insurance and mortgage papers which are outdated or paid off. These could be destroyed, or transferred to a home file, saving valuable space. Stamps, coins, jewellery etc. could be sorted and perhaps sold if no longer wanted, or perhaps now is the time to give a special Safety deposit boxes piece to a relative or dear friend rather than have unwanted articles sit in the dark unused and uncared for. Whatever you do with your safety deposit box, however, do keep a complete, com- prehensive and accurate list, preferably in duplicate, of the contents of your box, in- cluding any pertinent description of shares. debentures and policies. Include numbers and names of registration where they may apply. Leave one copy of the list inside your deposit box and keep another one in a safe place at home. You may wish to leave another copy with someone you trust. It is wise to keep a list with your personal papers of the banks where you deposit your funds. Many people today deposit funds in various cities away from their home area as a convenience when travelling. Charles Colling is the resident manager of Yorkton Securities Inc. in Midland. In sen ding in questions to be answered, please remember Securities Commission Regulations will not permit giving opinions or reccommendation on any speciiic securities through this column. All other signed inquiries will be answered as soon as possible. In all answers only the inquirer's initials will be used. Address all questions to 'Investor's Inquiry" c o The Midland Times, Box 609, Midland, Ontario. ESPSS News and Views: by Andrea Dault ceptionally well in a teams all won their The team's advisor is only $8.00 you can buy a Mr. Belanger would Australian exhange ESPSS teams battled close game that ended matches. Congradul- John Bayfield. white T-shirt with 3 4 like to announce the -- student, Gay Cudmore. against ODCVI in both with the score 48-46 in ations girls! If you're interested, lenth red sleeves. An disappearance of his who has haunted our basketball and our favour. Mike Pilon Getting away from watch the match on amusing enblem of our Christmas present. The halls since Sept. Her i volleyball action this was the top scorer with sport-related compe- television on Jan. 29 at 6 symbolic red Indian is gift (a tiny Kermit frog) charming accent and | past week. On Wed- 28 points. titions, I'd like to talk p.m. on the front. Please talk was given to him by his customs endeared her to i nesday, Dec. 5, the boys Our girls volleyball about mind-related The team is now. {to members of the beloved Grade 13. ou hearts. She has basketball teams faced teams also. played ones. Specifically, I'm preparing for an up- student's council if students. It is reputed een in Canada _ since those from ODCVI. against ODCVI. The _ referring to our Reach coming battle against you're still interested. to have been brutally Jan.of last year and left Our Senior team won with a score 70-42. Paul Balabuck and Lorne Marcille were high Seniors lost their games as well as the Midgets. The Juniors did win and brought home a bit of For The Top team who won in their game against Sutton District High School on Jan. 5 Huntsville on Tuesday. Jan. 18. Good luck guys! Today was the last day to purchase school House T-shirts are also on sale. They're available in the four frognapped from his spot in the ceiling by a spiteful thug. Mr. Belanger is offering a last Friday. On Thursday she treated the schook to a scorers with 16 points. hope. with a score of 222-160. T-shirts. However, don't house colours with their small reward for" the slide demonstration The Juniors lost by a At the same com- The team consists of despair, the fashionable respective house return of his little about her homeland. score 67-42. Pat Dion petition, the teams also the masterminds of trend-setting items will symbols on the front. friend. Although she left a few was their best scorer battled against Elm- Patti Murphy, Karen probably be put on sale The price is less than On a more serious days ago, she will make with 9 points. The vale. Our _ Senior, Desrochers, Martin again if enough people $4.00 so make sure you note, I'd like to say a brief detour to San Midgets did 'ex Junior, and Midget Walker, and Pat Cote. seem interested. For buy yours soon. good-bye to an Francisco. Wednesday, January 19, 1983, Page 5