Buffalo, NY—Henry Bonefickle, a parts manager at Booswami Hyundai was recently drawn into a new Netflix series featuring best-selling author and decluttering guru Marie Kondo. Kondo, is a Japanese woman known for her system of organizing and tidying up called the KonMari method, which consists of gathering together all of one’s belongings, one category at a time, and then keeping only those things that “spark joy.” The benefits of unburdening yourself of possessions that don’t “spark joy,” are said to be increased creativity and a sense of inner peace. Bonefickle has fully embraced the KonMari method, but according to people in his life he has carried it a little too far.
Bonefinkle’s wife of thirteen years, Marie says she really appreciates that he cleaned out all their drawers and combined all the half-full Nyquil bottles that were cluttering up the shelving in a bathroom closet. “But,” she said, “at some point it gets to be too much. He goes on and on about folding, talking about what a huge loss it is for people who don’t know how to fold. He even has a KonMari chart that instructs you on how to fold properly. Don’t get me wrong I like a nicely arranged sock drawer as much as the next person, but he’s driving me fucking nuts talking about it and checking to see if I’m following the principles correctly.”
At work he has encouraged everyone in the dealership to streamline and unclutter their work areas. While well intentioned Bonefickle has gotten himself in hot water with some his co-workers about the necessity of their personal effects. Doris Ballcup, a loan facilitator at the dealership often complains openly and bitterly about her lousy no good husband who lays on the couch with his hands down his pants watching ESPN, yet she has pictures of him all over her work space. Reasonably, Bonefickle suggested she remove these pictures because her “dick hugging lout” of a husband seems to cause her distress rather than “spark joy.”
After the comments Ballcup marched from her cube right into the office of the dealership’s manager, who promptly called to see Bonefickle and told him to mind his own business. Bonefickle, however, noticed piles and piles of papers in the manager’s office and went into a dissertation about paper being the third category in the Konmari decluttering method. Bonefickle was sent home and told not to come back to work till he could “stop being an asshole with all this Konmari bullshit.” That also included not playing “the goddamn REO Speedwagon” songs he was practicing on an acoustic guitar during lunch with his new found “goddamn creativity.”
Bonefickle’s return to work is pending. On the way he home he stopped at Bar Bang Bang and when the day bartender Gus, stepped away to use the restroom he decided the bottom shelf liquors—the Midori, Blackberry Brandy, Absinthe, Sloe Gin and Creme de Menthe among others—weren’t “sparking joy,” and he started to toss them in the garbage. Hearing the crashing bottles Gus hightailed it from the restroom and stopped him. Bonfickle, however, started right in on Gus, complaining the nonsensical arrangement of his tattoos also failed to “spark joy,” and he started to offer suggestions while poking him in various parts of his arms.
Bonefickle was rushed to surgery at Mercy Hospital where his face, which Gus caved in was like a messy, unkempt closet, and was reconstructed to be a face again. Whether it will be a face that “sparks joy,” or not is yet to be determined.
