Cleanliness is next to boringness
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 06:58AM I hate cleaning. My mom and two of my sisters are clean freaks—their houses are always spotless. I, however, am from a different school of thought. If it looks relatively decent, it’s clean enough. That means I only occasionally dust and vacuum, I wipe down the kitchen after cooking but it rarely gets a deep clean, and my bathroom never really sparkles. While I try to keep things picked up for the most part, I only really clean clean when I’m having company. And "company" does not include family or close friends—they get to see the real me.
Fortunately Robin is generally of this same school of thought. Our cleaning philosophies are about the same. Whenever one of us hosts book club, for instance, we usually do a little dusting and vacuuming. Otherwise we just try to keep the kitchen sanitary (we almost always stay on top of the dishes and the trash) and the junk put away.
So the other day when I got home and noticed that the apartment had been cleaned, I was befuddled. Did you clean? I asked her. Yeah, a little bit, she said.
Um… why?
She had no reason, just felt like cleaning. Thought it could use it. I’m not sure that I’ve ever cleaned just because I "thought it could use it." There was the occasional Cleaning Day that Brad and I would declare when we lived together, but we had to feed off each other to get anything done. I’m not self-motivated with the cleaning thing.
So basically Robin was sitting home alone on a Thursday evening and she thought, "I’m going to clean the house." Not screw around on the internet, not get lost in bad tv or a good book, not call up a friend to hang out. Clean. For no good reason.
I’m still having a hard time comprehending that.
Brad, Friends, So Annoyed
Reader Comments (9)
I have moments like those. The other day I was on the phone with a friend and I noticed a dustball. That ended with me dusting my entire living room/dining room.
I have those days too. They usually hit at like 1 or 2 am, which I'm sure makes my apartment neighbors oh so happy when I decide to vacuum.
My roommate is actually pretty messy and I never thought of myself as a clean freak until we moved in together. I'm like you though, i dont DEEP clean very much but i cant stand dishes and trust and dirty floors. I feel like im constatly cleaning up after her though.
Oh how I wish that would happen to me. Just once. I'm starting to think I'm the laziest person alive.
I'm with Jason. I get a cleaning buzz in the wee hours of the morning. But, since I became a grown up, I never see the wee hours of the morning anymore (even though I'm such a night owl). I guess that's why my apartment looks like a landfill threw up.
I am a lot like you in that, unfortunately Kevin is a major clean freak. Though, once in a blue moon, I'll just start cleaning, just because. It's usually either really early in the morning or really late at night. One thing really funny is that sometimes Kevin gets the urge to rearrange furniture at like two in the morning. I wake up walk out in the living room/office only to find things weren't where I last saw them.
I'm definitely a clean freak, and as such, November is driving me NUTS, what with all the pine needles that somehow find their way into our house. Roth commented that I must've swept the floors 17 times this week, just trying to combat the plethora of needles. I am slowly but surely losing the war on pine needles.
Uh yeah. I rarely feel motivated...maybe twice a year....to do a super deep cleaning. Although I clean more than I used to, I can think of a bajillion things I'd rather do than clean.
I like cleaning to fun music. But only when things are so out of control that it makes a huge difference when you actually pick up. I tend to be messy, not dirty, while my roomate is neat but dirty. Interesting eh? P.S. I liked the title. I'll be sure not to mention it to Noel. :)