I pulled myself together yesterday and did all the things I was avoiding, including desk organizing, scrubbing and cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming and tidying the room I have in my house for the grandchild, and putting a plastic bag on the mattress I am throwing out. I ran some errands, fed the family when they came over, started the dishwasher, put the trash out, and got the old mattress out onto the curb. (While the Philadelphia Department of Sanitation is wonderful and will take all kinds of things including mattresses, they cheerfully overlook anything that isn’t absolutely on the curb.)

After the family left, I sat paralyzed for a little while, because I was afraid to mess up anything. The house was so clean. What was I going to do if I didn’t have any postponed tasks to avoid?

Luckily for my sanity, this morning I discovered that the grandchild had messed up his room gloriously during the family visit, and that some officious neighbor had dragged and leaned the mattress up against a house wall to get it off the curb. That was easy enough to remedy; I picked up most of the stuff in the grandchild’s room and then closed the door on it so I couldn’t see it, and then dragged the mattress over to lean it on a curb planter in front of my house where it will miraculously become visible to the trash collectors.

But that wasn’t the only discovery I made this morning. When I came downstairs, I discovered that my cat Uncle Louie, in the process of barfing up a hairball the size and shape of a tampon, had vomited everywhere on the first floor. My house now smells like minimally digested diet cat food, and the floor is smeared despite the application of numerous paper towels and a rag. One sofa pillow is drying in the back yard, and I may have to shampoo a sofa cushion. I’m going to have to get the mop and bucket and clean the first floor again.

It wasn’t just entropy that had its way with my nice tidy house, in other words, it was active disruption.

It was the universe reassuring me there will always be tasks to avoid.

I may just leave the house and go to a movie. Or just leave the house.