for the bathrooms, it wasn't uncommon if i flushed the toilets, swished some water in the sink, and called it a day. i was also notorious for dusting around everything on the furniture, yet never actually pausing to pick anything up to dust under it. heaven forbid i actually dust the items on top of the furniture. that was completely out of the question because it would have taken hours in my room alone thanks to the gazillion disney figurines i insisted on displaying on each piece of furniture in my room. i actually did a decent job vacuuming, but that was the least fun for my parents because they had to listen to me complain about how heavy the vacuum was. i swear it was the heaviest vacuum known to man.
despite my lack of cleaning talent, my parents insisted that i help (something i didn't want to do in the first place) because "that's what you did in a family." while i still believe we should have gotten a maid, as long as i helped with the weekend chores, my parents were fairly lenient about the state of my room. that's not to say they didn't expect me to keep it picked up, but let's just say it never looked like my sister's. she was the queen of clean rooms (and tucked in tshirts, perfect parts in her hair, matching socks...all the things i didn't/couldn't do). my room was similar to what pig-pen's room might have looked like (if you don't know who pig-pen is, check out the wikipedia article...and yes, i know wikipedia isn't always right, but it gets the job done for me).
anyways, as i got older and my cleanliness didn't seem to be improving, my dad began shutting my door every time he walked by my room. he always said that if he shut my door, he didn't see how terrible it looked so he didn't get angry and punish me. he assured me this was for the best. naturally, i just accepted always having a closed door and didn't think much about it. i didn't get yelled at as much and i also didn't have to pick up my room all the time -- it was a win win for me.
however, today i realized that my very own apartment had gotten to the point that i wanted my dad to come close the door on all of the rooms within it. that's right, i wanted to pull something from my dad's bag of tricks so that i wouldn't get so angry...with myself. how's that for strange? i wanted to close the door into the living room, i wanted to shut the bathroom door, and i wanted to shut/lock/seal the door on my bedroom. everywhere i looked was a disaster. it got to the point that i couldn't even begin to tackle the five thousand projects i have because i couldn't find table space OR floor space to work in.
so i took a break from procrastinating on my research proposal (oh the irony of taking a break from procrastination!), channeled my inner clean freak, and set to work. i scrubbed floors and baseboards, swiffered my heart out, vacuumed for what seemed like hours, and in honor of easter, found all those little dust bunnies on and under my furniture (and yes, i even lifted things up during the dusting process!).
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| oh, there's the floor! (and no, i'm not 12. i just like pink.) |
but you know what? it's earth day today. there are people everywhere doing really wonderful things for our planet and for that, i'm very thankful. i hope somewhere someone plants a tree for me. goodness knows the planet needs it after i just released enough chemicals into the air for another ozone hole. if there's one spotted over my apartment, i take full responsibility for it.
