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Clean as a
whistle
I was
talking to a frazzled friend the other day. She was busy
preparing her house to be put up for sale and the preparations
were killing her.
The house
needed to be made impossibly, sparkling clean for the house
seekers — even if she had to scrub every inch with a toothbrush.
I remember that feeling. Steve and I only went through the
insanity once of having to pretend that our house was always in
a pristine state.
When we were
selling our condo you could eat off the rug for a year. It was a
real challenge with two toddlers running around. I developed a
permanent crouch from instantly scooping up anything the girls
dropped. I was nuts, but I must admit that even during normal
times I used to be a clean fanatic. Now I no longer have the
time or the energy. I keep wishing that some fairy godmother
would drop by and vacuum.
When Steve
and I were first married our apartment had one of everything it
needed — bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining nook. You could
stand in the middle of the living room and touch the entire
apartment.
The kitchen
was so small that I’m not even sure it deserved the name — kitch
would be more appropriate. If you wanted to snap open a garbage
bag or change your mind you had to step into the dining area.
But it was cozy and enough for the two of us and what was even
better, it was a snap to clean. Every Friday I would spend the
afternoon scrubbing to my heart’s content.
Our next
apartment, though bigger, was easy to clean as well. True, it
had another bedroom and a slightly bigger kitchen, but the only
hardships were the refrigerator and the stove. The fridge was
not self-defrosting so I had to hack the ice off of it every
time someone opened its door. And the oven, while self-dirtying,
was not self-cleaning, so we had to spray it every now and then
with some noxious, foul smelling spray to loosen the grease.
It wasn’t
until we moved to the condo and added a child along the way that
my cleaning urges grew more subdued. When I was about seven
months pregnant with Lisa, my energy level dipped to an alarming
low — especially when everyone kept telling tell me that if I
thought I was tired then, I should wait till the baby came. So I
called a cheery sounding cleaning service to come and give me an
estimate of what it would cost to polish up the old homestead.
I remember
asking the guy if he could just give me a price on the phone,
but he insisted on coming out. He explained that he had to see
my place to list what needed to be done to bring my house up to
their standards. The first time they came out usually meant lots
of extra cleaning before they settled into a normal routine.
It was an
interesting interview. Everything he thought his crew would have
to do to whip the condo into shape had already been done. It
seems that — crackpot that I was — I had already cleaned my
stove, my baseboards and the tops of my doors — I told you I was
nuts! In the end, he just looked at me and said, “Lady, you
really like to clean don’t you?”
Well if that
guy came into my home today, he’d be thrilled with me. I don’t
remember the last time that the tops of our doors have seen a
dust rag and our baseboards are best friends with every dust
bunny in the county.
I admit that
our house is neat, just definitely not the clean that our other
homes were. Though the girls are gone, we’ve added a dog that
sheds hair faster than he grows it.
The house is
also much bigger with an upstairs and a downstairs. Plus, I’m
getting older and more tired. Of course if you talk to my
daughter Lisa, she thinks this is a great development. I have
finally joined the ranks of the normally clean people. But there
are still things that drive her nuts, like the fact that I
insist on drying the dishes and putting things back where they
belong.
She would be
thrilled to hear about the infamous blueberry incident. I had
bought some frozen blueberries at least ten years ago, and they
had been happily hibernating in my freezer until I decided it
was time to eat them. So I put them in the fridge to defrost,
then promptly forgot about them.
Last week I
decided to make some lunch to take to work. I opened the fridge
and whipped out some turkey that I intended to turn into a
sandwich, when I suddenly realized that I — and the entire
fridge — was covered in purple juice. Blueberry juice. The
hardest-stuff-to-get-off-clothing-and-I-was-wearing-a-white-dress
juice. After dousing the dress in enough stainremover to sink a
battleship, I spent the next hour in my underwear scrubbing the
fridge.
No matter.
For the past week, every time I’ve opened the fridge door, more
of it comes dribbling out, taunting me with its very purpleness.
If I live to
be 500 I’ll never get that fridge free of blueberries. Lisa must
be laughing her pants off. And I now eat only strawberries.
June 26, 2008
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