Just recently, my husband and I left for a five-day business trip. Thankfully, my parents agreed to watch the kids at our house. It was such a blessing to know the kids would sleep peacefully in their own beds while we were away. What I didn’t fully anticipate, however, was the house detail that I felt was required before my mother’s arrival.
First, I must properly set the stage. My parents live nearby and come to watch the kids weekly. They know exactly what my house looks like. They see the state of my dirty bathroom sinks and half-eaten moldy refrigerator food regularly. They are nice people; they never say a word about any of this. Yet, in the hours leading up to our departure, I felt obligated to show Mom that she taught me well.
You see, my brother, sister and I did a lot of cleaning around the house as we were growing up. We had weekly chores, before-Christmas chores, spring-cleaning chores and before-we-leave-for-vacation chores. My mom ran a tight ship. There were never dirty dishes in the sink nor piles of clothes waiting to be washed. I try, but my house has never looked liked Mom’s.
So, after the kids went off to school the morning of our departure, I looked around and shuddered at what I saw.
Walking into my bathroom, I immediately discover I have no bathmat. We’ve been using a hand towel outside the shower forever, and I never cared until two hours before my mother was about to stay overnight at my house.
The next thing I notice is that we are still using the Jacuzzi tub as a storage facility. We have lived in this house for 12 years. There is no excuse for why we haven’t found a different place to store the multitude of vitamins and supplements that are falling over each other in cardboard boxes in the bottom of the tub.
I don’t have time to figure that out now (although I do contemplate throwing it all in the closet, but I know they will find it there too) so I decide I’ll just clean around the boxes. The least I can do is rid the tub of the dust and dead flies that have accumulated. Being on my hands and knees is dangerous, however, because now I see the floor should be mopped. No time for that. I grab a mound of damp paper towel and spot scrub.
I have already made up the king-sized bed with clean sheets, but now I’m realizing I have no king-sized blankets. We have always used a multitude of twin-sized blankets. Somehow that seems childishly inadequate now. I wonder whether they’ll notice if I put two similarly colored twin-sized blankets side-by-side on the bed. What if I turn them horizontally?
Oh, for heaven’s sakes, I think, this is so pathetic and sit down on the bed. Just then, my husband walks in. “Ready to go?” I tell him what I’ve just put myself through for the last half hour and start to giggle midway through the retelling. I realize then, that it’s time to stop the madness. Mom will accept the house for what it is, just as she does me.
