My mirror-self’s lips twitch, and then the woman looking back at me is laughing

“I’M an organized person.”

That’s me, talking to myself in the mirror.

“There’s an extra month of Adar this year, and instead of beginning to think about Pesach after Purim, I’m going to get a head start.” I glare at my reflection, daring myself to snicker. My mirror-self’s lips twitch, and then the woman looking back at me is laughing. Have I no faith in me?!

I decide to start with the unimportant things. The things that I don’t really believe need cleaning at all — like… the curtains? No, I decide. If I wash the curtains now, I’ll have to rewash them before Pesach. And to everyone sneering at me, I’ve just done a check and there are ancient, squashed Cheerios in the curtain lining.

I move away from the curtains. Books? Nah, too early. They’ll just get full of crumbs again.

My linen shelves, then. I head into the guest room, where I keep my folded towels. They’ve been on the top shelves for years, where I can’t comfortably reach them. Instead, I alternate between the same five towels, washed weekly, that move from the machine to the laundry line to the bathroom racks. In fact, if I take down my perfectly folded unused towels for dusting, they’ll probably pick up chometz from whichever surface I lay them on, because, hello, Cheerios.

Forget it. I’m not cleaning something that doesn’t need cleaning. And the stuff that really needs cleaning is always in use — I can’t clean that until Erev Pesach, post-kids’ bedtime. That includes pretty much everything.

“Wow,” says mirror-self. “Success! You proved it! You are sooo organized!”

I can’t stand that smug smirk of hers — she thinks I’m about to give up and leave everything till the last minute, as usual. I think of making lists, because that’s what organized people apparently do, but can’t muster up the willpower for it. I’ll make my lists… never. Pesach comes either way, and kids are starving whether there’s food or not, and I’m so organized that I can’t find a pen.