April 22, 2022 – The Sixty-Third Official Friday Night BeerBlog

It’s the age old question, discussion, or fight with your children. Or husband in my case. Is a room or house that is straight, clean? If you ask my husband, straight is definitely clean. But I cannot get on with this logic.

When We Were Dating

When Mike and I were dating, I was always amazed at how well put-together his apartment was. Everything had a place and everything was in it’s place. It was impressive of a man in his 20s. Not that I was a clean-freak, just ask my mother, but when you finally live alone, you realize that those piles of crap and dirty dishes in the sink are actually yours and not your sister’s, like you told your mom for years.

When I finally came to live on my own, I developed a habit of cleaning, so how impressed was I that Mike’s apartment appeared to be so clean. But wait. Hold the phone. As you moved closer to the actual stuff and where it was sitting, you could see that indeed these things were neatly put in place, but the amount of dust that surrounded them was obscene.

There would be no question of where an item came from if you picked it up and needed to put it in the exact same spot because the dust ring was the perfect guide. I remember this clearly, which since I can remember this despite my many concussions, means that it made an impression. Notice I didn’t say good impression.

The Apples Don’t Fall Far From The Tree

This object placing, paper stacking technique to get out of cleaning was passed down to our children. On cleaning day forever, neat piles would be assembled. The dusting cloth and spray would just sit for days unused.

But I can’t fault the young ones. That would be so hypocritical. I remember the days when I was not allowed to leave the house until I had dust mopped the wood floors and vacuumed my room. You would think that 15 minutes of work would have been an easy thing to do in order to have my whole day to go play outside, but I totally remember letting the cleaning tools lay there until the day was nearly gone and the ultimate threats started. ONE – TWO – you remember the counting days, right?

And even then, I wasn’t vigilant about doing it right. I did it just okay. As my father would say, “Good enough for government work”. I’m sorry if there is anyone in government work listening. Maybe the new saying should be “Good enough for millennial work”, but that’s totally ageist.

The Difference I See

So these are my thoughts on the subject now. Straightening is something that should be done every day so that when you get to cleaning day, you don’t have to put things in their place in order to get started. For us, in a house with shedding dogs, it includes sweeping the wood floors every weekend. And if you have shedding dogs you know why.

Cleaning is done about every 2-3 weeks to get rid of dirt and germs and other funky stuff that accumulate over time when you live in a place. Since the pandemic and we have been in such close quarters for a lot of time, cleaning most definitely happens every couple weeks or I go crazy. But it’s funny how it never bothers anyone else.

The Phenomenon Of Deep Cleaning

Deep Cleaning is a term I’ve heard used by both of my children when living away from home. They tell me they are Deep Cleaning, rather than just Cleaning. Now what does that mean? This is the picture I have – they have avoided routine cleaning for so long that it just won’t do, they gotta full on Deep Clean and it probably involves a little elbow grease. This is my signal to not go anywhere near where they live.

So what kind of person are you – are you a straightener – that’s good enough person or do you need to get a good scrub in every 2-3 weeks. Make sure to let me know so I can decide to visit you or not.

LLM

Podcast….

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1594894/10487515