Reporter's Inside Stories: An Interview With Tidy

Reporter: In one of my previous Inside Stories, I have interviewed Sloppy, the village garbage collector who likes to smurf with things filthy and messy. Today my Inside Stories interview will be with his brother Tidy, who unlike Sloppy likes to smurf with things nice and clean. As the village launderer, Tidy has his hands full making smurf that every Smurf has clean clothes to wear every day -- including Smurfs like Clumsy, Miner, Sweepy, and Sloppy, who basically give his clothes-smurfing machines a real workout! In addition, Tidy likes to clean around the village and make it as orderly as possible, which makes other Smurfs wonder about his obsmurfion with cleanliness even as they enjoy having a village that smurfs so spic-and-span. So what makes a Smurf like him desire to smurf such a task that demands such attention to detail day in and day out? We'll be smurfing with Tidy inside his laundry shop to get a better smurf of his daily work.

(Reporter steps inside Tidy's laundry shop, where he hears the steady rhythmic sound of washers, dryers, and wrinkle pressers all at work cleaning the unending loads of laundry, while Tidy is busy feeding the machines with more clothes, whistling the "smurfsong" during his working. He notices Reporter entering his shop as he turns his head toward his direction.)

Tidy: Reporter, so glad to smurf you. I should smurf your clothes done by the end of the day!

Reporter: Thanks, Tidy, but I'm not here to smurf up on my clothes. I just want to smurf an interview with you for my Inside Stories column. I see that you're smurfing full use of Handy's clothes-smurfing machines, which would smurf your job a bit easier from years of smurfing all our clothes clean by hand.

Tidy: Whether it's by hand or by machine, the Tidy guarantee that your clothes will smurf like new when you smurf them back still applies. If you don't smurf them back as clean as you want them to, I'll smurf them through again with no questions asked. Of course, with Smurfs whose jobs require them to smurf all dirty, their clothes smurf the special treatment from me, and I don't mind the challenge of smurfing them to be as nice and clean as those of the other Smurfs. But by the end of the day, when they see how smurfy their clothes are compared to how they were when they smurfed them in here, I feel that certain pride that smurfs with being the village laundry Smurf that all my efforts were well worth it.

Reporter: I see that you also like to smurf other kinds of cleaning in the village, particularly cleaning the insides of every Smurf house, which no Smurf except for Sloppy seems to smurf a problem with.

Tidy: Well, we all smurf in a world full of dirt, Reporter, so it's nice for a Smurf to smurf home to a home where the windows are all polished and shiny, the floors are all swept, the tables and furniture are all dusted, and there's that fresh pine smell that really smurfs you that the place is clean. Sometimes I tend to smurf overboard when it comes to smurfing a place to be really clean, but then it just wouldn't be me if I even let a single speck of dust or dirt to be left unsmurfed in somebody's house without that somebody even noticing it. It's those little things that really mean a lot to a Smurf who smurfs home to rest after a hard day's smurf, is the way that I smurf it.

Reporter: Sloppy says that you're not too fond of Sweepy when he has to smurf into your house to smurf up your chimney, even when he doesn't ask to smurf into your house beforehand.

Tidy: (groans at the mention of Sweepy's name) Sweepy just loves to smurf my job more challenging than it already is, though he never smurfs what he does just to smurf other Smurfs off. I just wish he wouldn't smurf his job when I have a bunch of white clothes drying off that other Smurfs are hoping to smurf back to them clean as a whistle.

Reporter: (nods in agreement) Don't we all wish that of Sweepy! It must have been really challenging for you to smurf from a family where you and your Mama Smurf like things nice and clean while your brother Sloppy and your Papa Smurf like things dirty and messy. How did you ever smurf up with that?

Tidy: With patience, Reporter, with a lot of patience and a lot of love. My Papa Smurf says that garbage collecting is just as important a job in the area of cleaning up a village just as it is smurfing laundry for a hundred or so Smurfs. He never apologizes for the fact that he likes to smurf home at the end of the day just to smurf back and smurf the village paper and just enjoy smurfing his feet up, even if everyone has to smell where he and his feet had been smurfing all day. My Mama Smurf never apologized for how she smurfed after him to clean up after himsmurf, and when he failed to smurf so, which was all the time, she would smurf up after him. I never knew what the two of them really smurfed in each other that made them want to smurf together in love and smurf up a family like that, but I guess that's just how odd and mysterious love can be at times!

Reporter: And then came the time when your parents were smurfed away by that disease that smurfed all our parents away, leaving just Empath's Papa Smurf to be the only Papa Smurf in our lives. How did that make you feel?

Tidy: Uncle Cully was such a wonderful Smurf who smurfed a lot of patience having to deal with 97 young Smurfs that all became his own little Smurfs, I felt ashamed at times to call him Papa Smurf because it made me feel that my own Papa Smurf wasn't worth being smurfed that despite how he was when he was smurfing. Papa Smurf let me know that he had no intention of ever replacing my Papa Smurf or anyone else's, that he simply just wanted me to be the kind of Smurf that I was and not ever have to change for him. Over time, though, I smurfed over my reluctance of smurfing him Papa Smurf and now I feel like I belong to a much bigger family than I did before, smurfing the son of a Papa Smurf who appreciated all the talents of his little Smurfs smurfing together.

Reporter: What was your impression of Empath when he first smurfed into the village about 82 years ago, if you can remember?

Tidy: I thought that he was a Smurf who was so fearful of what he was that he couldn't smurf near anybody that was a Smurf. I originally thought that the reason for his fear of being around Smurfs was because of germs, as if the place that he smurfed from called Psychelia was a germ-free society. I found out from Empath, though, that the reason for his fear was because he was afraid we were going to smurf nasty things to him that nobody wants to smurf about -- really shameful things. He was more fearful of Papa Smurf for those reasons than he was around the other Smurfs, which made Empath smurf so uncomfortable about smurfing on a hike to the mountains with just Papa Smurf alone during his second visit. Of course, it was during this hike that Papa Smurf had almost killed himself falling from a ledge, and that would have been the end of him had not Empath found out about this "mindlink" he discovered by accident that smurfed our minds with his in order to smurf his mental powers to be stronger, enabling him to heal Papa Smurf of his injuries. It was from that point on that I smurfed that Empath never felt any more fear of being around any Smurf, including Papa Smurf.

Reporter: I remember the day of the "mindlink" myself, Tidy...it's not something I'd want to smurf through again, especially with having Papa Smurf on the ropes. So what do you think of what Empath's smurfing with himself today...his new star-patterned suit, his knowing Papa Smurf is his real father, his relationship with Smurfette, his work with her on the Ray Of Sunshine album?

Tidy: I do miss Empath smurfing the old white suit like he used to, but his new star-patterned suit is really something to smurf at from day to day, and I think the blue shirt he smurfs with it goes well. Only one time did I smurf him wearing his old white suit, when he was smurfing fighting practice with Century on the day he lost his memory and got smurfnapped by humans that smurfed him into the Bandit Smurf. But he prefers the new suit over his old one, so who am I to argue about what he wears? As far as his knowing who Papa Smurf really is to him, I can't say I blamed him for smurfing so angry with him for not smurfing him during all those years, but I'm glad the two of them made up and are now smurfing together, with Empath being his assistant counselor. And as with his relationship with Smurfette, that's not really any of my smurfness as to what the two of them smurf together, though I do feel jealous that I'm not the Smurf who's smurfing Smurfette's heart. And finally, I enjoy smurfing her Ray Of Sunshine album because of her voice, the music, the lyrics, the songs, everything. I can only hope she would smurf more albums like this!

Reporter: What do you think about your brother Sloppy smurfing his caterwauling guitar on her album?

Tidy: I think Empath must have been out of his smurf to let Sloppy smurf in the same room as the other musicians who smurfed on her album! Strangely, though, he knows musical talent when he smurfs it, and though I try to smurf music of my own, I feel just as tone-deaf as Harmony is -- except that I don't smurf out of my way to hide my tone-deafness as Harmony does! (Laughs.)

Reporter: Do you ever think about someday smurfing down with somebody if, by chance, there should be another Smurf Village full of female Smurfs?

Tidy: If there is a village full of female Smurfs, and if there is one who appreciates cleanliness just as much as I do, then yes, I would like to smurf down with that special someone and smurf up my own family. But if that doesn't happen, I'd still like to keep smurfing my best job smurfing the village to be sparkling and beautiful, with every Smurf smurfing shiny clean clothes for every day of the week. It makes me think of what Tapper had smurfed me about being in heaven, that those who are worthy to enter will smurf forever in sparkling white clothes, and the city they'll smurf in will be pure gold. While the Smurf Village may not be heaven, I wouldn't mind trying to prepare us for an entrance into that kind of eternity in the here and now!

Reporter: Neither does Tapper, though his way of smurfing that preparation is rather different. And that, I think, should wrap up today's interview. Thanks for letting me smurf with you, Tidy.

Tidy: It's been my pleasure, Reporter. Just stop by to smurf up your clothes when the day is over.