Clean Freak

This morning I made a rather startling discovery. Perhaps not all THAT startling for anyone with 20/20 vision who has ever visited my house -- but startling to me nonetheless.

You see, I happened to inadvertently leave my reading glasses on while cleaning up the kitchen this morning … and what a discovery! I learned - much to my horror - that I am not nearly as good at housekeeping as I thought I was. I discovered grots where there oughtn’t be grots, smears where there oughtn’t be smears and slops where there oughtn’t be slops.

My toaster, for instance, far from being the pristine white appliance that I once thought she was, is actually a toast and god-knows-what bespeckled abomination. My stainless steel fridge bears milky smears and smudgy finger prints (that I can no longer blame on kids) and my stove top looks it’s been stocking up on crumbs and other food scraps for the winter.

The problem, of course, is that up until now I have been oblivious to this microscopic world of kitchen chaos. It’s like opening up a whole other universal portal; one where small, gooey things take on a life of their own – multiplying and cavorting in cracks and crevices, sticking to shiny surfaces and glooping down walls. It’s primordial!

Well anyway, there was me thinking I’d been doing a sterling job of cleaning. These beliefs, however, were clearly unfounded and I was forced to consider exactly what mess my previous guests may have been exposed to on those occasions when I have thought I have thoroughly cleaned up before their arrival. The mind boggles. So with glasses firmly attached to face, I proceeded to wander around the house to check out the REAL situation.

I found a centimetre of dust on the venetian blinds, a thick snake of fluff on the picture rails and some unidentified fungus growing out from the bathroom tiles. This last one, I must admit, is not entirely new to me. At our last house I regularly hosted a small toadstool that would force its way up through the shower tiles.

I have to admit I held a certain admiration for that tenacious little guy and would allow him to reach a reasonable size before wiping him out with the scrubbing brush. After all, I figured, if he could go to all that trouble just to live his life in my shower, who was I to thwart his efforts so callously? He deserved to live a little.

What I didn’t comprehend for some time was that, by the time I had eventually decided to remove him on each occasion, he had most likely already spread his spores and was planning his next incarnation. We played this game for a couple of years before he finally gave up in disgust. Maybe he, like my 20/20 vision–enhanced guests, saw a few things he didn’t like in that bathroom. I guess I will never know.

But anyway, back to my current grot-discovery. Could this be why the kids left home? Could I have out-grottied even THEM? (Is that possible?) Am I the laughing stock of the Domestic Goddesses of the world? Certainly this would not be any surprise nor, for that matter, of great concern to me. You see, I figure if one’s housekeeping abilities are questionable then there’s a good chance that people will not expect much of you in this regard and thus you can get away with being a bit of a slob. Cool.

I must admit, though, that there is a small part of me that would like to think that she is just as clean and tidy as every other Domestic Goddess (call it Ajax Envy) and so I am not quite prepared to capitulate to my handicap just yet.

No, from now on I will don the reading glasses every time I decide to clean up the house. That way my delusions of cleanliness will be exposed and I will be forced to be more fastidious.

Well, that’s the plan anyway. Just don’t tell little Fungus Face in the bathroom. We wouldn’t want to scare the little fella off, would we?