As some of you may know, I recently decided to go back to school, because apparently working full time and planning a wedding did not leave me in enough of a catatonic state as it was.
I signed up as a full time student, unshaking in my confidence that my ability to do all things with no time was unparalleled. I quickly realized my infinite shortcomings as I attempted to write a research paper while curled into the fetal position on the sofa, fighting/losing a battle with the stomach flu and surrounded by a myriad of household items that had no business being anywhere near the living room that moment. Well really they had no business being there ever. (Empty bags of chips, 3 socks, a pile of comic books, half eaten corn nuts, 93% of our dishes, and a measuring cup.)
Now this is a pretty tragic situation for me, because I am a neurotically clean person. Being stuck in a dirty house that I don’t have the time or energy to clean is downright excruciating. And like any well-functioning adult, I hold my parents wholly responsible for my inability to cope with life’s ordinary annoyances. Well really I blame my step-father, and it’s about time he was introduced to this blog anyways.
As a teenager I was pretty much average in my disdain for cleaning. The front door was my dumping grounds for coats, shoes, keys, backpacks… basically anything I came into the house with. My step father’s solution was to take these miscellaneous items and dispose of them in the recycling bin- where I was free to retrieve them before the recycling was taken out the next morning.
This wouldn’t be so much of an issue except that the recycling bin was kept in the garage. The garage was also home to an industrial size freezer full of assorted deer body parts from his latest hunting expeditions, and the six ducks we kept as pets.
Why did we have ducks in the garage? Well why the hell not. Everybody loves ducks.
But the ducks didn’t love me; they actually seemed to despise me with every ounce of their feathered beings. The homicidal birds would run/waddle at me and quack excessively in what I can only image was a torrent of cursing anytime I invaded their home. So retrieving a backpack meant trudging into the garage with handfuls of saltine crackers and a broom- bribing the murderous water fowl and using the broom to slide the recycling bin away from the icky freezer. I quickly learned to put away my stuff.
So anyways, back to life-altering meltdown in the living room. I realized that with no way to fix my situation, I needed Jose’s help around the house. I asked him to start doing the dishes, and he happily agreed. Happily I think because he saw a light at the end of my tunnel of incessant whining.
Unfortunately Jose’s methods of cleaning are not exactly up to my standards. At first I would wander the house, staring at orange peels on the kitchen counter and laundry half folded, wondering in amazement at what the hell just happened here. I decided to make Jose the subject of my own study that I call, “You must be bat-shit crazy if you think that’s how dishes are done”.
I take pictures and then label them with whatever it is that he’s decided has distracted him from the task at hand. I’ve found that he is easily distracted by things like ESPN, potato chips, dogs, beer, comics, HBO, facebook, stink bugs, text messages, magazines, the chalkboard, and sometimes just blanking out for no logical reason whatsoever. These are my favorites.
“The phone rang”
“Farve was on TV”
“I got bored and gave up”
Short of fitting him with blinders like a half-crazed race horse, there’s really nothing I can do except get over it. Jose will, eventually, do the dishes.
Possibly tomorrow.
Most likely not.
But eventually they’ll get done.
In retrospect, I should have been prepared for this lack of house cleaning motivation. This photo was taken the day we moved into our house- Jose was putting the linens away, but decided instead to take a nap.
