When I retired, I was sure that I wouldn’t have enough to do to fill my days and that has happened. Once. One day out of eleven years. The rest of my 4,000 post-retirement days have flown by and I can’t seem to find time for anything. I don’t know how I ever found time to teach school and rear my kids and clean my house, not that ever cleaned my house, and my kids and husband, well, forget it. They couldn’t tell a bottle of Old English solution from Worcestershire.
In my retirement, I have become very lackadaisical about cleanliness partially because I’m lazy but also because, when I get right down to it, who cares? Not my kids because they didn’t care thirty years ago and things haven’t changed. Not one time have they said, “Dang, Mom, your house is dirty.” Dust and dust bunnies are part of everyone’s life and who made the rules about making beds, which causes me to strain and stretch as I tug and tuck and pull and push the sheets and blankets where they will just be kicked off later anyway? It seems like an exercise in senseless futility.
Used, dirty dishes should be washed, but not everyone agrees. For example, my boss at Ferncroft (only Idaho old-timers will remember Ferncroft) threw a hissy fit the one time I washed his coffee cup. I thought he was going to fire me. He liked his coffee cup to have character, and believe me, his coffee cup had character, but I never washed it again. Now, in my laziness, I sometimes think the same. It’s coffee, the same Folgers as yesterday. A coffee cup with character…it sounds like the name of a blog. Shrug.
So last night, when I returned from my trip to Nome, otherwise known as the land that the sun forgot, I walked into my house and wondered what the heck happened. It was a disaster. I knew that I would never have left it in such a state, an unmade bed, unwashed dishes, a pile of laundry that rivaled a half-grown arbor vitae bush. Gremlins or leprechauns, or other invisible pesty creatures must have invaded my house, or maybe my kids had turned on me, and messed it up, just for the fun of it.
I have a lot more fun writing blogs and books than washing dishes, doing laundry, and wiping down the fingerprints left by my lovely grandchildren. And there will be a time when I cherish those fingerprints.
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