On Cleaning

I swept my kitchen today, and I thought of how sweeping is a largely unremarkable task. Everyone does it, or, well, everyone should do it at least occasionally, but no one ever talks about it. I prefer to use a broom, and I don't hate doing it. I don't necessarily like it, but I don't mind it when I get around to it--it comes in somewhere below laundry (which I almost enjoy, if I didn't have to do it so often) but above dishes, toilets or windows. My mom will sweep when she's bored, or when she's on the phone. Also, you should see the inside of her microwave. It looks like it did the day she bought it.. but that's another story, and maybe I'm the only one who puts the interior of her microwave that far down on the priority list.) I didn't inherit the chronic sweeping gene. I'm very good at cleaning when I take a notion to do it, but I don't tend to take that notion all that often, so I get by on a mixture of good-enough and ignore-the-mess most of the time, interspersed with infrequent but massive bouts of cleaning goodness. I don't freak out about clutter unless I'm trying to concentrate on something or be creative in some way, but I do freak out about germs a bit. (M makes derisive comments about how obsessed Americans are with the whole germ thing when I get too worked up.) I hate a dirty kitchen but I hate doing dishes even more, so I have to suck it up and live with it until M does them. I change the sheets as often as I think about it in time to get it done before bed, but nowhere near as often as they recommend or as often as I'd like to. And I fully consider tidying up my hard drive and organizing my Start menu as part of my intensive cleaning regimen, as does M. (Nothing is clean unless the computer is, too!)

When I was very young, my mom invited my Aunt Rita and cousin Brian over for dinner one night. She had spent the day cleaning, and we were having spaghetti. I dropped some on the floor, and I picked it up from the floor and ate it. Brian told me to stop eating from the floor because it was dirty, and I told him that it was alright because Mommy said the floor was clean enough to eat from. I don't know why I remember that so clearly, but I'm glad I do. Brian was killed by a drunk driver when I was four and he was eight, so I don't have that many clear memories of him.. the ones that I do have mean a little more.

*wonders what everyone else's cleaning habits are*