I’m a lot of things, which is good, but unfortunately for my husband and immediate family there are also a lot of things that I am most definitely not. One of those things is a neat freak.
I am not a good housekeeper. While I like to blame this on the fact that I work full time, have two small children, a cat, blablablablabla yakityyakityyak,the sad truth is that I am a slob by nature. My level of slobhood is directly linked to my power of ignoring rubbish, which is a finely tuned instrument blinding me to all but the most disgusting things. So no, I will not miss the freshly pooped in diaper which my youngest so kindly left in the hallway (pull-ups, such a joy!) but I will miss her trail of dirty socks, pants, etc. which snake through the living room into the kitchen where she will be trying to wipe herself (potty-training don’t ask, just don’t). They will stay put until the evening or perhaps even the morning after. Unless they are pooped on of course, then I’ll spot them.
My slobness is not limited to cleaning up; other areas of my life are affected as well. I have the uncanny ability to avoid laundry for weeks on end. Oh I will wash the clothes and dry them and stuff. But there the fairytale ends and the horror story begins. Once dried and stain-free clothes seem to simply vanish from my radar, it is like they cover themselves in a Febreze-enhanced stealth cloak. I’ll leave them to sit peacefully in our laundry room and will occasionally rummage through the pile in the hope of locating a stray sock or a clean not to wrinkly t-shirt. Things got so bad my mother started to do my laundry. The poor woman couldn’t stand the sight of her little angels of grandchildren in a wrinkly frock anymore. She claimed that the state of their clothes ruined every photo-opportunity.
But sometimes a strange desire for purity and cleanliness tears me away from my grime incrusted sofa and makes me pick up a sponge and some soap to scrub that which has never been scrubbed before. The only reasonable explanation I can find for such erratic behavior is demonic possession by a Cleansiac Demon. Don’t tell me he’s not real, I think he once appeared on Charmed. I’m not sure though, I might have been too busy checking out Julian McMahon ‘s ass.
When this happens, I do strange things, things which leave my house clean and smelling of that tell tale chemical lemon scent of which seems to inhabit all cleaning products. I spring clean, I vacuum, I dust thorougly and I have also been known to clean shoes.
Yes, cleaning shoes is not a regular weeked activity in my household. Please don’t tell me that this comes as a surprise? Again I will only clean shoes when they are beyond dirty. Unfortunatly this happened last week. N°2 had stepped into God knows what and the shoe was in such a state that I could justify not cleaning it. While I was scrubbing I decided I might just as well do the other shoes in the house. So I set to work. I had just finished N°1′s new ballet flats when she turned away from her game and asked me what I was doing.
“Cleaning your shoes dear, look they are all shiny and pretty again” I answered, beaming with pride.
She cocked her head to the side like a pensive cuckatoo and said:
“Don’t bother mommy, I’ll play in the sandbox again tomorrow and then they’ll get dirty again”.
I hereby wish to apologize to my eldes’s future significant other for passing on my slobgene. Sorry dear, don’t hold it against me.
