Ahhhh…spring is officially here. The birds are singing, plants are blooming, and some days have actually been warm.
So why do we insist on celebrating the arrival of such a momentous, beautiful season by cleaning? That’s just so wrong.
When I think about celebrating something like spring, I envision lying in a hammock, looking at the aforementioned singing birds through binoculars, sitting at a baseball game, or doing most anything that includes being outside. If friends are involved, even better.
What I don’t particularly feel like doing is holing up in the house with old rags and my new best friend, Mr. Clean. In fact, just the thought of having to clean ticks me off.
While I’m not a total slob — you’ll never see me on an episode of “Hoarders” for instance — I’m not exactly Miss Clean and Tidy either. If you dropped by my house, and I didn’t know you were coming, I guarantee that I would absolutely fail the “white glove” test.
Every. Single. Time.
Don’t get me wrong; my husband and I clean our home fairly regularly (yes, ladies, men who help clean do exist – and it’s not because I threaten him…often). But not because it’s a certain day. Like, oh it’s Saturday, so instead of going out and enjoying the day, let’s scrub the floors with a toothbrush.
I thought this was perfectly fine. I mean, it works for us, so that’s what’s most important, right?
Sure. Until I was reading a post on a friend’s Facebook wall recently. The topic of spring cleaning came up, and a woman offhandedly mentioned that she had been doing this for the last month and as she listed off her tasks completed, she wrote, “washed the walls.”
Um, excuse me? If I were in a conversation in person with her, this would have been the moment where I would have asked her to repeat what she just said because I would know that I hadn’t heard it correctly.
Washed the walls?
Washed? The? Walls???
I didn’t know whether to laugh or become completely paranoid that everyone else in the universe had a cleaner home than I.
I’ve dusted the walls – if they had cobwebs on them. Heck, there have been times when I’ve vacuumed the walls (only at the top where said cobwebs tend to, um, appear seemingly overnight). But washing a wall? Nope.
Unless someone spilled something directly onto the wall. Or the dog barfed on the wall (is that even possible? – never mind, I don’t want to think about it). Or a friend’s child drew on the wall. And even then, if it were a cute drawing, I might just leave it up there for a bit. After all, I don’t want to discourage a budding artist.
On a regular basis, though, wall washing is just not going to happen in my home.
I have been doing some cleaning, though. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I got completely grossed out by our refrigerator and spent an entire Saturday taking out the shelves, cleaning the drawers, and even cleaning and organizing the freezer.
But now I’m becoming a bit compulsive about it. If I see a tiny drip of something, I immediately grab some cleaner and cloth and wipe it away. If food starts to get weird, out it goes. I am no longer harboring science projects in there.
Once something is this clean, I want to keep it this way. And I get angry again because I would much rather be reading in a hammock.
I remember my late mom telling me about how her grandmother used to take the rugs out of the house, hang them over the clothesline, and beat them to get the dust out.
But seeing how I feel about cleaning, I’m not sure she was doing it to get them clean. I’m thinking it was more a way to get her anger out about having to clean anything in the first place.
I think when I’m out enjoying the sun this weekend, I might just get me some throw rugs…
Michele Wojciechowski, who loves cleaning about as much as she would love a hole in her head, writes Wojo’s World™ from her home office, which is a bit, um, cluttered right now. Check her out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WojosWorldFanPage or on Twitter @wojosworldtm.