not to put too fine a point on it
Jan. 7th, 2015 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fufarawLet's just call a spade a garden implement, okay? I am no domestic goddess, by any estimation. I dislike work of any sort, housework included. Oh yes, I can scrub a bathroom with the best of them, wield a swiffer like a samauri warrior, and tweak tchotchkes on a shelf half-inch left, no, right and back diagonally, no, left and further back... for an entire afternoon. Once started, you know, it's hard for me to quit. Starting is hard.
One of the things that whips my chicken about cleaning, is that you have all these neat *tools* for specific jobs--this little brush that reaches the crevices of the whatnot, and the wandy-thingy for reaching up high, and the special cloth for furniture polishing, or silver polishing, or brass or copper...don't mix up the cloths. Toothbrushes work for a lot of things. The vacuum has a beater bar that does a decent job on the rugs. All well and good. So you do the job, right? You get it all sparkling clean and now you can move on to something else. Like a bubble bath, or a coffee or tea on the deck with a book, all virtuous-like, basking in your accomplishment.
Except, you can't. Because, even though you did the job you set out to do, you got the thing clean, now you have to clean the tool that you cleaned the thing with. And who makes the tool to clean the tools you use to clean the things? I sit down by the trashcan and upend the vacuum cleaner with the body of it clamped between my thighs and go at the bristles of the beater bar with scissors and a chopstick, cutting and pulling out the hair that snarled around the bar. I take the wandy thingy I use to sweep the cobwebs off the ceiling fan and around the ceiling corners outside and try to discreetly beat it against the house wall to dislodge a lot of the dirt before I sit down and use a comb to get the rest of the yutz out of it, then go back inside and put it away, and then wash the comb. And then clean the sink and clean out the strainer in the drain. I pull the full bag out of the trash can and take it to the dumpster--then come back in and wash the lid and the outside of the trashcan. And then wash out the cloth I used to wash the trashcan.
It never ends! I mean...I see no end point. I think I want a steam cleaner unit, just suck the filth off everything with it, and then dump the nasty water and wash and dry it and the attachments and put it all away until the next time the house is dirty enough to catch my attention.
I swear, it's always something.
One of the things that whips my chicken about cleaning, is that you have all these neat *tools* for specific jobs--this little brush that reaches the crevices of the whatnot, and the wandy-thingy for reaching up high, and the special cloth for furniture polishing, or silver polishing, or brass or copper...don't mix up the cloths. Toothbrushes work for a lot of things. The vacuum has a beater bar that does a decent job on the rugs. All well and good. So you do the job, right? You get it all sparkling clean and now you can move on to something else. Like a bubble bath, or a coffee or tea on the deck with a book, all virtuous-like, basking in your accomplishment.
Except, you can't. Because, even though you did the job you set out to do, you got the thing clean, now you have to clean the tool that you cleaned the thing with. And who makes the tool to clean the tools you use to clean the things? I sit down by the trashcan and upend the vacuum cleaner with the body of it clamped between my thighs and go at the bristles of the beater bar with scissors and a chopstick, cutting and pulling out the hair that snarled around the bar. I take the wandy thingy I use to sweep the cobwebs off the ceiling fan and around the ceiling corners outside and try to discreetly beat it against the house wall to dislodge a lot of the dirt before I sit down and use a comb to get the rest of the yutz out of it, then go back inside and put it away, and then wash the comb. And then clean the sink and clean out the strainer in the drain. I pull the full bag out of the trash can and take it to the dumpster--then come back in and wash the lid and the outside of the trashcan. And then wash out the cloth I used to wash the trashcan.
It never ends! I mean...I see no end point. I think I want a steam cleaner unit, just suck the filth off everything with it, and then dump the nasty water and wash and dry it and the attachments and put it all away until the next time the house is dirty enough to catch my attention.
I swear, it's always something.
