There are some things I should not be allowed to do. Like cleaning. I am a terrible, terrible Cleaner of Things. Every time I clean, I believe I’m doing a good job. Windex, wipe, Windex, wipe. But somehow I leave behind detritus, pieces of lint, litter, hair. Yes, I shed like a Tribble. I actually don’t know for sure how much Tribbles shed, but I think it’s a lot. Or like a Golden Retriever. Buddy, the 100 lb Golden we used to live next door to, left clumps of fur wherever he went. That’s me, without the saliva. Don’t worry, I pull my hair back into a pony when I cook. My mother used to cover hers in a kerchief, having the same problem. Luckily, I inherited a thick head of hair from her, so I don’t seem to be running out yet.
Anyway, back to the cleaning. No matter how hard I try or how hard I sweat, my cleaning jobs never measure up to other people’s. My brother in law took over the San Diego house, and he came over to put some stuff in the garage. He cleaned it. He didn’t just sweep, or move boxes around. He mother effin cleaned that thing UP. The thing had never, ever been so clean. The tops of the washer and dryer sparkled. The shelves shone. The floor had been vacuumed and looked pearly grey, not oily grey. It was like Christmas morning in that garage. It didn’t exactly make me crush on my brother in law, ’cause that would be icky, but it did make me wonder why he hadn’t forced his younger brother to clean like him. Why his family didn’t have cleaning tourneys in which my husband had to prove his manhood. Of course, said brother in law is deathly afraid of June bugs and chicken on the bone (it’s the tendons) so I probably benefited in other ways instead.
Also, I am a bad cleaner because I’m allergic to dust and mold and even cleansers. It’s proven. I have the medical records. I wonder if this means I can tax-write off a maid.
I can’t even clean pans correctly. I soak them, I wash them with a brush and then a cloth, I rinse. I dry. I take them out later and see big gunked on food that my 95 year old grandmother in law would have seen. For heaven’s sake. I re-wash.
I am writing this because I spent the afternoon unpacking 19 boxes that the lovely Hawaii Kai post office man kindly delivered to me. My legs had black gunk on them. I have no idea from what. I then went to the beach and swam– all the way beyond the cones, even– swam for over an hour. Then I came home and had a shower.
And what did I see when I got out of the shower? Black gunk on my legs.
It’s a blindness.
I should have been born a royal who has servants washing them, dressing them (I’ve been known to always button sweaters wrong), cooking, cleaning, the whole nine yards as I sit and play the harpsichord.
