My house, to me, is like my hair. For the most part, it’s clean; it’s just usually . . . disheveled. Tousled. Windswept, as it were. It’s got a carefree, playful look. Sassy, even. Some days I might forget to comb it, and for special occasions I might add a little style, but in general, I just throw a big ol’ hat on it and hope for the best.
Yes, I am not what you would call a neatnik. My husband calls me the Clutter Queen, and it was not without some irony that I married a man whose only truly pushable button is, yes, clutter. His dream house would be a vacant building. He believes that anything designed for storage, from the kitchen counters to the hall closet to the basement, is specifically designed for the storage of air.
In point of fact, cleaning ranks right up there with cooking and root canals on my list of fun things to do without painkillers. I’ve gotten somewhat better at it since the kids came along, what with all those pesky health laws and such, but it remains a sticking point with my husband. When the study came out a few years ago suggesting that some dirt in the home is good for children, I wept with pride; he just wept.
This time of year, however, I like to surprise him by taking the hat off for a bit. I like to show him his house after a color and a cut, so to speak. I can usually tell the season has arrived when he starts showing signs of losing his considerable patience with me.
For example, he recently had to change the battery in a smoke detector by the kids’ bedrooms, and I noticed his gaze shift from the unit to the hall light a little farther down, and finally to the corner of the ceiling by our bedroom door. “That’s an impressive cobweb,” he said.
“Thank you,” I replied. When I realized by his expression that it wasn’t actually a compliment, I knew it was time.
And I’m ready. Have lawn bag, will travel, that’s my motto. I go from room to room and toss out anything that doesn’t look as though it’d been worn or played with in the last five minutes. Toys, books and clothes go to places they will be used, and the rest . . . doesn’t, if you catch my drift. Hey, I don’t do it often, but I do it well. Suddenly I’m Martha Stewart making decorative placemats out of newspaper clippings.
Oh, sure, there are those who would find this amusing, those people who think they know me so well and find it funny to sit in judgment of me, those who know, for example, that I’ve spent the better part of my adult life assuming that dog hair’s decorative and that a self-cleaning oven actually cleans itself. To them I would respond as I always do; “Who are you people, and why are you calling me ‘mommy’?”
Yep, my kids are a laugh riot, all right. They saw me holding a mop one time and my son said, “Hey! Did you ask Daddy if you could use his mop?”
The good news is they’re getting a liberal education in terms of gender roles; the bad news is they think their mother’s a slob.
Then again, they always get just a little nervous when they know mommy’s got the fever. More than once they’ve picked up a toy in the pediatrician’s office and asked me suspiciously, “Hey, didn’t I used to have a toy exactly like this? And hasn’t it been missing for, like, a year?”
Yes, it’s time once more to hang up the hat and to clean this house. Sassy though it may be, it’s ready for a new ‘do.’ Spring is in, and the windswept, tousled, disheveled look is out.
So I must go now. It’s time to vacuum my head.