Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 6, 1993 TAG: 9403090023
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CYNTHIA THOMAS HOUSTON CHRONICLE
DATELINE: HOUSTON LENGTH: Medium
A recent People magazine cover story on the prodigiously perky ``Today'' show co-host didn't dig up any skeletons in her closet, but it did come across a couple of chicken bones in a coat pocket. Couric had borrowed the coat, and the owner found the bones the next day. A neat person wouldn't understand. An immacuholic would be disgusted. But Pam Young and Peggy Jones shake their heads in empathy.
There must have been a perfectly good reason she put the bones in the pocket, they say. There was probably no place to dispose of them at the time. Then she just forgot about them.
Plus, ``They were probably wrapped in a napkin.''
Young and Jones, a.k.a. the Slob Sisters, have taken a handicap - being genetically programmed for chaos - and turned it into a career. In their zeal to clean up their act, they're taking thousands of the maniacally messy with them.
They've got books for slobs, videos for slobs, slob products for sale. The Slob Sisters' latest book is ``Get Your Act Together, A 7-Day Get-Organized Program for the Overworked, Overbooked and Overwhelmed'' (HarperPerennial, $10).
The sisters thought about starting a Slobs Anonymous support group. But they decided it wouldn't work, because slobs wouldn't get the time right and they'd get lost on the way to the meeting.
In 1977 the sisters realized their lives were out of control and they had to get a grip on things. Low points in their lives coincided. For Young, it was the return to her hometown with a failed marriage behind her and 157 moving boxes in front of her - all marked miscellaneous. For Jones, it was the day she sent her loving husband off to work with the blue face, the bad hair and the damp underwear.
When she couldn't get to the store to refill supplies, she substituted other things and hoped no one would notice.
``We were out of electric shave, and I put blue food-colored water in an empty container and gave it to him. And he cut himself, and it made his face kind of dyed a little bit blue.
``He was shampooing his hair with liquid Woolite, and he didn't know it. That stuff strips every bit of natural oil out of your scalp and your follicles. His hair was out like a wedge.
``He blew it dry, and he said, `Peggy!' and I went in there - and he's already got the blue face - and I said, `What?' And he said, `What is going on with my hair?' And I said, `Well, you blew it dry crazy.'
``And he said, `This is the way I've blown it every morning of my life.' ``And I said, `Are you going to wear your hat?' - he's a policeman - and he said, `YES!' and I said, `Well, here, let's just spray it.'
``So we sprayed it, and I kept trying to press it. And his hair's real thick and curly. It was much too big. It was like Clinton with a crown on his head. Like Clinton if maybe he got electricity in his hair, and then you sprayed it and made a cast out of it.''
Then she gave him his clean underwear.
``I said, `Danny, these are a little damp, but they're not very damp, because I washed them a couple of days ago.''' The sisters got organized using an index file of to-do cards that Jones had used when she sold ads at a newspaper.
Once they had their system down, they wrote about it, following the grand literary tradition of Erma Bombeck, housewife angst wrapped in one liners. (``I took my ironing board out, and the dog barked at it.'')
They now employ an immacuholic, a person who has every detail of life planned and under control and who helps them run the business.
``You have to have one of those,'' says Young. ``They'll do the work of 10 people.''
by CNB