Tromping in Black Grease (or Why Not to Have a White Floor)

Well, it’s pretty clear by now that housework is hell.  I have arrived at the conclusion that this belief is not a hereditary trait, though. We visited my mother this weekend, and my mama is INTO IT.  I mean, talk about clean!  Before I have had a cup of coffee and made a list of things I need to do today, my mother has already done them all.  She has speed-walked around the house 27 times, put a load of laundry in the washer, begun preparations for whatever delicacy my younger daughter Pearl has requested for breakfast, and checked on the weather forecast.  All of my life Mama's flip-flops have been zipping up and down the hall, GETTING STUFF DONE early in the morning.  These days she has a white floor, which seems like utter madness to me.  Who has a white floor?  I saw someone on TV once who suggested taking a sample of the dirt outside to the floor store.  You could match the floor to the dirt, and then the dirt would never show after someone comes tromping in with dirty shoes.  This seems like a very good idea to me (matching the color, not the tromping).

Speaking of flip-flops and tromping dirt in, as soon as we arrived on the scene at Mama’s house,  Pearl tromped car grease she had on the bottom of her own flip-flop onto the porch, through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bedroom.  She’s a quick one, I must say.  We were all using Mama’s miracle cleaning wipes and wiping up nasty black grease before we had been there five minutes.  Nasty black car grease does not go well with gleaming white floors, in case you were wondering.  Poor Mama.  She said, “It’s taking y’all less and less time to make a mess!” We don’t know where Pearl acquired the car grease, because we only found a smear on the van carpet.  Maybe she walked through it on her way to get in the van, and there is still a big blob on the carport at home.  (Drake was putting in new rotors on his truck, whatever a rotor might be. Big blobs of grease are his specialty.)

We definitely are not the neatest family in the world.  Also, remember that list I mentioned earlier?  I usually just save the items from one day until the next, because making the list is, itself, an accomplishment, right? Maybe I’ll get around to doing something on the list tomorrow, or the next day…

Helpful Housekeeping Hint:  DON'T GET A WHITE FLOOR.  JUST DON'T.

Ain't Love Grand?

As sometimes happens, an early-morning peace has fallen upon the house, and I am drinking my coffee in the quiet.  My husband, that man of Great Commotion, has left the building.  He has gone down to his brother Daniel's house to cut wood and clean up the workshop for tomorrow.  This morning, brother Daniel has gone to get married; he is then going to come home and help Drake with the preparations.  Tomorrow there is to be a combination Wedding Feast and Birthday Celebration for Daniel, his new bride, and his mama.  The workshop is the biggest building available for such a huge gathering.  All of this sounds very interesting but not something in which I wish to participate.  As for the Feast Food, some folks would call this a potluck.  However, not everyone is gifted in the area of cooking, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a pot in which to piss.  Drake is going to stop and pick up some chips and bottles of Coke.  

While we were discussing the matter of what foods I was not going to cook for tomorrow, a mouse was trying to sneak out and eat the dogs' Ol' Roy dog food, something about which the dogs seem happy enough.  I told Drake that I wanted him to show me how to set the mousetraps, a trick that usually ends with Drake doing whatever-it-is himself; he hasn't the patience to teach me anything.  This time, he actually did show me, but then he announced that he would set them when he got home tonight since no one here would get the dead mice out of the traps and dispose of them, anyway.  "O-kay...," I said in a disappointed and lingering tone.  This usually works, also, but he wanted to head on down the road in time to see his brother and his bride-to-be depart for their upcoming nuptials.  

Oh, well.  There will always be another day for catching mice.  That's the way you think when you measure your marriage in decades and mousetraps and coffee spoons instead of anniversaries.

Ain't love grand?

Helpful Housekeeping Tip:  Send chips and Coke when you can.  Napkins and paper cups are good, also.  Every sandwich on a plate will be eaten, so a plate of sandwiches will work well, although these are more time-consuming to prepare.  NEVER, repeat NEVER, volunteer to bring actual FOOD to a potluck.  

My Grandmother's Library Table

We live in a small house which was originally a hunter's cabin.  The front room is long and contains the living room, the "dining area," and the kitchen.  (BTW, having all of this in one room is NOT A GOOD IDEA.  NOT AT ALL!)  Later, after the invention of duct tape, the other rooms were added to the house.  Against the wall in the "dining area" stands my grandmother's library table.  It is a great desk, with deep shelves on each side and a drawer that runs through to the other side.


I, however, have never been able to use the library table as a desk.  Why?  Here in Housekeeping Hell, any clear and moderately clean surface is obviously an invitation to pile a whole bunch of your crap upon the empty space.  Imagine what would happen if someone dusted and polished the surface!  There aren't many empty, shiny surfaces in sight here, needless to say.  On the desk right now, there are four huge bottles of over-the-counter medications; one bottle contains my husband Drake's fish oil capsules.  These are supposed to be good for something, but I have a feeling he just likes the idea of swallowing fish oil when he is stuck at home instead of fishing.  On the desk also stand five flashlights, proudly guarding us against the fear of darkness.  A can of "Deep Woods Off" awaits the next person who considers braving the tick-, mosquito-, and snake-infested outside world.  Covering the center of the desktop are also a camera, several cigarette lighters, some pocket knives, and a couple of baseball caps.

Snake Crisis

Let me just share what happened here in Housekeeping Hell the other day, maybe Thursday. My older daughter Beulah came in and grabbed the pellet gun, following some commotion out on the carport. I inquired in a motherly voice, "What are y'all doing?"

"Oh, there's a snake in this walnut tree. Karina saw it. I'm just going to try to make it move down out of the tree." Karina is my daughter's roommate, and she probably has the best eyesight in the house. I thought that maybe I should check out the activities on the porch. There was considerable squawking from a blue jay going on, and I realized that I had been hearing it for a long time.

We were all out on the carport, observing this big old wad of a snake wrapped around the walnut tree. I was trying to imagine what it would look like unwadded and unwrapped, crawling rapidly across the carport, or perhaps launching itself through the air. My daughter was shooting pellets at the snake, the bird was squawking, and periodically, one of the four of us would scream a bloodcurdling scream. The snake rearranged itself, and looked at us with its snake face and snake eyes. I yelled, "Whooohoo! It LOOKED at me!" I ran inside the house, deserting both my daughters and Karina to attend to reptile charming. Karina was already observing from inside the van, anyway.

Finally, the snake decided to go up the tree and go across the top of the carport. My younger daughter, Pearl, yelled, "It's bleeding! It's bleeding out of its MOUTH!" Well, this was exciting. I went back out on the carport to check on this reported blood. All of us were just hanging around, discussing other times I have deserted my children to snakes, and Pearl said she heard a noise. I looked up and saw a snake head come down the front side of the carport! This snake had crawled across the whole roof in maybe four minutes! Great screaming ensued, plus some point-and-click photography. The snake crawled down the corner of the front of the carport and headed across the front of the little porch. He had left a trail of blood down the wall, grossing everyone out. "EEEWWW." "I didn't know snakes bled!" Etc. Just like the Amityville Horror or something. Snake blood flowing down the walls...

The last I saw of the snake, its tail was going off the side of the front porch, very slowly. Beulah, the snake hunter, apparently saved us all. However...

My husband Drake came home after a hard day of fishing. After his usual narrative about the fish that got away and why it got away and how someone else caught a huge fish, I told him we had a little snake trouble here. He took the large flashlight outside and looked around with his night vision eyeballs. He did find the snake on the other side of the porch, probably lonesome for his favorite walnut tree. Drake took him down the hill to a little creek down there, where the snake undoubtedly told all the other snakes incredible stories about why snakes should not climb the hill to the terrible house up there. Oh, well.

Drake's main comment was that he did not know Beulah knew how to shoot the pellet gun! His surprise almost made him forget to say the snake was a king snake or a rat snake, both friendly varieties we should not shoot with pellet guns. Men always tell you that the snake in question is a "Good" snake we should not hurt. When the men are not around, we are free to let all hell break loose and shoot the shit out those creepy beasts. Eeewwwuu.

I hope your day in your own Housekeeping Hell does not include snake blood.

Helpful Housekeeping Tip:  A great deal of water pressure is required to remove snake blood from the outside of a house.  It is best to avoid this problem if at all possible.

How I Feel About Housekeeping...

I have to start out saying that I feel like writing to Ellen deGeneres and asking her for help, or maybe that guy who fixes up the houses for pitiful people. That show that is really sickening, where a crowd of people yell, "MOVE THAT BUS!" and then everyone cries...I hate shows with fake sentimentality and floods of tears. Yuck. I prefer the murders and clues that include blood spray. That should give you a clue about how I feel about housekeeping. Somebody always has to clean up the damn blood spray after those guys measure it, etc. Somebody has to clean up the blood spray here, too, but only occasionally.

We live in an old, small, crumbly house out in the country. Now, that might sound idyllic to a few idiots in the world. I have to say that there are not many muggings here, not many people stealing your purse, nor anyone hijacking your old, rattling vehicle. I would probably just give them the keys and walk on home, only to find that I had given them my house key, too. Then I would have to break in the damn window yet again, and my husband, who cusses a whole lot louder and with a much worse vocabulary than I, would have to repair the window with some plexiglass someone swapped him once for a battery cable. He'd finish off the job with part of a Dr. Pepper carton and some duct tape. The whole house is actually a miracle held together with duct tape and dirt.

Helpful Housekeeping Tip:  If you think you should be doing something associated with housekeeping, go begin a new blog.  The feeling will pass quickly.