Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [111]
I feel terrible for the people I read about being subjected to awful heat, and I always wish I could bring them ice water.
Neat People
N eat people are small, petty, nit-picking individuals who keep accurate checkbooks, get ahead in life and keep their cellars, their attics and their garages free of treasured possessions. They just don’t seem to treasure anything, those neat people. If they can’t use it or freeze it, they throw it away. I detest neat people. I was in a neat person’s home several weeks ago and he took me down into his cellar. He must be making a dishonest living, because there was nothing down there but a few neatly stored screens and the oil burner.
I feel toward neat people the same way I used to feel toward the brightest kid in our class, who was also a good athlete and handsome.
My dislike for the tidies of the world is particularly strong this week because I realized Sunday that my desk is such a mess I can’t find anything, my workshop looks like a triple-decker club sandwich with tools on top of wood on top of plans on top of sandpaper on top of tools on top of wood. If I need a Phillips screwdriver, it’s easier to go out and buy a new one than to find any of the three I already own.
How do neat people do it? I hate them so much I don’t want any help from them, but I would like to follow one around someday and see how they live. I bet they don’t do anything, that’s how they keep everything so neat. They probably do all sorts of dumb stuff like putting things back where they belong. They probably know which shelf everything is on in the refrigerator; they could probably put their finger on the nozzle to the garden hose.
What do you do with all that stuff I have cluttering my cellar, Neat People? Did you throw away the hammer with the broken handle? Mine is still down there.
What about the twenty feet of leftover aerial wire and the small empty wooden nail keg? Don’t tell me you were so heartless that you tossed that out. You don’t even appreciate the fact that you never know when you’re going to have a good use for an empty wooden nail keg. That’s how dumb you Neat People are. I, on the other hand, have been ready with an empty nail keg for the past twenty years. That’s about how long it’s been in the cellar, right there in the way if I ever need it.
You probably throw out broken plates and glass pitchers that can’t be repaired, don’t you? Tell the truth. I don’t. I keep broken plates because I can’t stand to throw them out. I’m waiting for them to make glue that will really mend china and glass, the way the ads say the glue will now.
Many years ago a man who owned a hairbrush factory gave me a bushel basket of odds and ends of rosewood. They’re beautiful little pieces and I’ve never figured out what to do with them, but I wouldn’t neaten up my cellar by throwing them out for anything.
My wife says the old bookcase I took out of the twins’ room in 1973 should be thrown out. She gets a little neat every once in a while herself. Thank goodness that never happens to me. That’s why I still have that bookcase.
We have four children and I’m not saving much money, but should I ever die, I’d like to leave the kids something. I have nineteen cans of partly used paint, some dating from the late fifties, in the cellar. I don’t want them fighting over my estate when I go, so I think I’ll make a will and divide the paint among them, I want it to have a good home.
Driving
June is the beginning of the time of year when Americans do the most driving. I often spend 20 hours a week in my car during the summer months. It seems like an awful lot of time now that I’ve written it down. If I sleep for 42 hours a week and drive for 20, that means I’m not doing much of anything for 62 of the 168 hours in a week. Maybe we better get a