Next to godliness

Originally released for publication February 23, 2005
(c) 2005 by Steve Martaindale
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One of the things we meant to do this past weekend was clean the house. Not a big-deal spring-cleaning, mind you. It’s just that a couple of friends are visiting this week and we didn’t want the house to be quite so ... shall we say ... comfortable. Don’t laugh; you’ve done the same thing.

It being a normal weekend, however, we continually found one thing after another that needed our urgent attention, like a Sunday afternoon walk. As the day wound down, Leah pointed out that we had not yet cleaned the house. She suggested we apply one of her patented blitzes, where we set a timer for 30 minutes or an hour and we break our necks during that period to get everything done.

I’m not a big fan of blitzing unless (1) the situation makes it absolutely necessary or (2) it involves my football team sacking the opponent’s quarterback. No, I replied with no small amount of fanfare, I’ll clean the house tomorrow.

“Will you really?” she asked, using that breathy voice that indicates just how much she is impressed with my offer.

Sure, I say, I have nothing scheduled tomorrow except finishing my column, using that deer-caught-in-the-headlights voice that indicates I really didn’t expect her to believe me. However, she wanted to believe me, so she pretended she did and the issue was dropped for me to pick up the next day, along with rogue pieces of paper, extra shoes and the chicken bones from yesterday’s lunch.

IS IT CLEAN?

Clean is one of those relative adjectives. What is clean enough for lounging around is not clean enough for entertaining guests is not clean enough for cooking is not clean enough for surgery. Furthermore, clean has different meanings to different people. Pardon a blatantly sexist observation, but the average male can be amazingly comfortable with the cleanliness of a room that will send many females into a chlorine-wielding frenzy.

Fortunately, Leah and I both fall pretty much in the middle, though she definitely takes the stereotypically feminine stance long before I see any problem with my surroundings.

That’s a fact I must keep in mind whenever I shoulder the responsibility of ridding our abode of dirt, dust, grime and the other scourges of civilized mankind. My mantra is clean until it’s clean, then clean some more.

The first thing she will want me to clean is my personal rat’s nest. (That’s her term for it, by the way. I call it my tabletop filing system.) While it appears to be a daunting task and I always want her to think that’s true, the stack of papers and archeologically sensitive artifacts is so cleverly arranged that I can straighten it out in short order.

The kitchen is usually kept in good shape since meals are actually prepared there on a regular basis. After washing the few dishes, I’ll scrub the counter all the way to the corners and wipe down any other surfaces.

The living room is pretty good, too. Living in an RV forces you to find a place for everything and almost forces you to put up one item before taking out a second. Yeah, it won’t take long.

Likewise the bedroom. In fact, I might be hard-pressed to find enough cleaning to justify even going in there.

The bathroom is Leah’s personal cleaning mission. She’s always doing something in there to keep it tidy. I’ll clean out the toilet and wipe down the sink and shower and it will be ready.

That leaves the floor and vacuuming this home is something I often do during a commercial break.

Everything considered, I could probably get it done in an hour. Let’s see, I expect her home in about 90 minutes. Great, I’ll watch “Around the Horn” and then, when it’s absolutely necessary, start my blitz.
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(c) 2005 by Steve Martaindale