I HAD MY LIFE IN ORDER — UNTIL THE OTHER NIGHT.

That’s when Loretta cleaned off the dining room table.

OK, here’s an open question to women: Why is it that, after we guys work so hard to get all the stuff we might need within arm’s reach, you feel compelled to move our stuff back to where we moved it from in the first place?

Here’s what happened the other night: When I left for soccer (Wednesday night is my soccer night — which is like bowling night only with less beer and more sweat), as I was heading out the door my lovely wife Loretta said something about tidying up the place while I was gone. Fine, I thought — I’ll only be gone a couple hours, how much damage could she do?

As it happens, a lot.

When I came back home and through the door Loretta quickly brought to my attention the fact she’d “cleaned up” the dining room table. My only real clue to her belief that she’d cleaned up the dining room table was when she said the following words: “I cleaned up the dining room table.”

But I could clearly see that was not what she’d done at all. In reality what she’d done was move all the stuff I’d painstakingly amassed on the table to other parts of our home.

When John and I got married, he moved in with me. I have a really cute little place. Back when I used to sell real estate, I would have described my home as “cozy.” But as small as it is, I managed to make very good use of the space I have.

Or shall I say, had.

In moved the giant sofa, massive amounts of tools and loads of books. Interesting combination, I thought. One thing I noticed right away was that John likes to read books: As in plural, as in at the same time. Or at least seemingly at the same time.

Just last night I used the time he was gone playing soccer to tidy up a bit.

We have this nice ritual where we have our coffee together each morning at our little dining room table. We decided to keep the electronics out of that ritual and read the real newspaper. Only, we can’t get the paper we want delivered to us. So we end up reading magazines or books instead.

So, last night as I was cleaning up, I picked up eight books and magazines from his side of the dining room table. Eight. I left one, and neatly put the other seven on the book shelf.

Why in the world does he need all eight at the table at once? Now I can actually see the flowers in the center of the table!

As Loretta was proudly pointing out what she’d done with the table, I put on a brave face and thanked her (thanked her!) for tidying up — all the while surreptitiously scanning the room to ascertain the location of my now-relocated morning reading material.

And it was important stuff, too.

There was my latest copy of Hemming’s Motor News. That’s a magazine mostly about auctions of expensive vintage cars, so I can stay up to date on the prices of Ferraris and such so that when I do eventually become rich I don’t get taken for a patsy when I’m at one of those high-end auctions.

There was also a book on how to sell books. And considering that I need to sell a lot of books (see Ferrari reference above), that is just the sort of reading material I need close at hand. Sure, the argument could be made I’m spending time reading about how to sell as opposed to spending time actually selling — but I see that as splitting hairs, don’t you?

Loretta also moved my copy of “The Wealthy Barber” — and that was just plain ill-advised. I mean that is a book with tried and tested financial planning advice. In fact it’s advice so good that, had I begun following it 20 years ago when I bought the dang book, I’d probably be driving a Ferrari already.

And then there were my skateboarding magazines. There were only a few of them, and what harm were they doing? If a 50-year-old man can’t have his morning coffee as he flips through the pages of a magazine full of people half his age flying down mountain roads on longboards then, I ask you, what has the world come to?

OK, I know what you’re thinking — all of those transgressions, that moving of things that should not have been moved, are deeply egregious, but surely that’s all that she moved, right? There couldn’t have been more — that would just be indefensible.

Well hold on, ’cause there is more.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with Rolling Stone Magazine, right? In 1983 Rolling Stone published a book called “The Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll.” It’s been updated three or four times since then and I have the latest edition.

This book is crucial to my very existence. Without it how would I have known that Clem Burke, the drummer for Blondie, also played for The Plimsouls and The Romantics? Or that Waylon Jennings was once a backup guitarist for Buddy Holly? And did you know that Buddy Holly used to spell his last name Holley — before dropping the “e”? Exactly! I would never have known that were it not for my copy of Rolling Stone’s Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll!

To move a man’s copy of such a tome, even under the guise of “tidying up” is, well, just unconscionable.

I was looking forward to having our morning coffee together on a clean table. But, I was careful to leave his favorite book. The one he seems to spend the most time reading.

It’s kind of fun when we are sitting there with our coffee and I share something I’ve just read (usually about relationships, or kids, or food) and he shares something he has just read. He will inevitably ask me something like “Hey, do you remember the Plimsouls?” Or, “Who did Tiny Tim marry?”My answer is usually the same. So he then goes on to enlighten me on who Tiny Tim married and how he asked her to marry him, and that some band member for one band used to play in another band, and that Buddy Holly only toured for two years before he died.

I guess maybe I’ll leave that book on the table.

You know, now as I think about it, I suppose it’s not so bad that my wife likes to clean the place up a bit. I mean, left to my own devices, I can be sort of sloppy. And I have to hand it to her for leaving the tools and knives and bows and arrows and such that I put next to our bed pretty much alone.

So maybe I’ll just bite my tongue about where my stuff got moved to from the table. After all — she’s just trying to make the place comfortable and clean and inviting. And maybe that’s what women do, huh?

I mean, if left to my own devices, eventually all my own devices would probably end up in a pile on the living room floor.

And I have to give her this: Even though Wednesday night was tough (I missed three goals I should totally have made in my game), I came home to our place looking pretty squared away, with a pretty woman on our big couch. So maybe some critically important stuff was missing off the dining room table. It’s not like I wouldn’t eventually find it and return it to its rightful place, yes? So in the scheme of things, that’s not really a big complaint to have.

In fact it could probably be argued that, if that’s all I have to complain about, things just ain’t that bad around our place.

Oh, that and when I got up this morning I saw that Loretta had put my Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll back in front of my chair at the table.

God I love that woman …

John P. Gavin is the author of “Online Dating Sucks … but it’s how I fell in love,” which is available at Bookshop Benicia. Loretta Gavin is a writer and mother of two — and the subject of John’s book.