Oh goodness, ain't that the truth? My wife would eliminate flat surfaces if she could - she says they give me too much space to put 'stuff'. I keep trying to get her to understand that her 'cleaning' is just putting my stuff in less conspicuous places...it goes on and on... HA!
I have to know where my crud is. I absolutely HATE wasting time looking for crap. I want to be able to find it in the dark. When you are cooking or under fire, time is of the essence. Relatively speaking.