This is a model dressed as a maid, but for sure she cleans better than I do Few people have less appetite for household chores than I do, but, unfortunately for the state of our dwelling, my Significant Other is one of them. The two of us would live in squalor if we didn’t have a cleaning woman who comes in once a week to scrub the place top to bottom. She is as sterling and honest a woman as there is on Earth. The only flaw in her methods is that she spends half her time cleaning, and the other half hiding important items from us, items we have carelessly left in her path. A lot of necessary paperwork and small items disappear this way, sometimes resurfacing later, and sometimes not.
Sometimes she gets so busy hiding things that she doesn’t finish chores like the laundry. But she always starts the laundry, so occasionally we don’t discover a load of wash until it has moldered for several says in the washing machine. There’s almost always unfolded clothes in the dryer. So every cleaning day, we spend the hours before her arrival frantically secreting things we want to find later, and afterwards we have to discover what she hasn’t finished and, in the tradition of our household, I have to finish them.
When the cleaning person folds the clothes, they form compressed, neat little squares that are easily stacked in their drawers. I don’t know how this is accomplished. When I fold things, they end up lumpy and asymmetrical, and have to be wadded into the drawers like stuffing into a turkey. Long-sleeved shirts are a particular chore for me. I ran across a YouTube video the other day that claimed it could teach me how to fold contour sheets. I immediately closed that tab. I already know how to “fold” contour sheets. 1. Bunch the sheet together until it is roughly the size of a basketball. 2. Cram it into the linen closet with your other unfolded sheets, using your fists and possibly elbows to wedge it into place. 3. Quickly close the closet door before the sheet escapes.
When you need fresh sheets, open the door and use the first one that falls out. You save precious seconds by not having to unfold it.
Gardening is not on our cleaning person’s chore list, so our tiny condo yard has fallen into a state of advanced deterioration. She does sweep up the Chihuahua droppings there, and always puts the cover on the barbecue grill, something I only do when rain is in the forecast, and sometimes not even then.
But the task of weeding and trimming the shrubbery is left up to me, and I have better things to do. After our Korean grass experiment, we had my Significant Other’s nephew come over and re-do the yard in stone, carefully placing a barrier of plastic underneath the stone so weeds wouldn’t poke through the rocks.
This only works for so long, we discovered and now we have two-foot tall weeds growing abundantly in several corners. They were luxuriously green. They got to their advanced height because my Significant Other read someplace that my favorite weed killer (the one that actually works) causes cancer, and I can’t pull the weeds because that would damage the plastic weed barrier and admit more weeds.
Eventually I got so sick of the weeds I pulled out the weed-killer when she wasn’t looking, and doused them thoroughly, wearing protective clothing (cargo shorts and flip-flops) to minimize my exposure to carcinogens. Now we have two-foot tall dead weeds in the yards, which is even more aesthetically displeasing, but at least it shows that we’re trying.
I really should go out and cut them down, but the cleaning person is coming tomorrow. I need to start concealing things that I want to see again before I do anything else.
Sometimes she gets so busy hiding things that she doesn’t finish chores like the laundry. But she always starts the laundry, so occasionally we don’t discover a load of wash until it has moldered for several says in the washing machine. There’s almost always unfolded clothes in the dryer. So every cleaning day, we spend the hours before her arrival frantically secreting things we want to find later, and afterwards we have to discover what she hasn’t finished and, in the tradition of our household, I have to finish them.
When the cleaning person folds the clothes, they form compressed, neat little squares that are easily stacked in their drawers. I don’t know how this is accomplished. When I fold things, they end up lumpy and asymmetrical, and have to be wadded into the drawers like stuffing into a turkey. Long-sleeved shirts are a particular chore for me. I ran across a YouTube video the other day that claimed it could teach me how to fold contour sheets. I immediately closed that tab. I already know how to “fold” contour sheets. 1. Bunch the sheet together until it is roughly the size of a basketball. 2. Cram it into the linen closet with your other unfolded sheets, using your fists and possibly elbows to wedge it into place. 3. Quickly close the closet door before the sheet escapes.
When you need fresh sheets, open the door and use the first one that falls out. You save precious seconds by not having to unfold it.
Gardening is not on our cleaning person’s chore list, so our tiny condo yard has fallen into a state of advanced deterioration. She does sweep up the Chihuahua droppings there, and always puts the cover on the barbecue grill, something I only do when rain is in the forecast, and sometimes not even then.
But the task of weeding and trimming the shrubbery is left up to me, and I have better things to do. After our Korean grass experiment, we had my Significant Other’s nephew come over and re-do the yard in stone, carefully placing a barrier of plastic underneath the stone so weeds wouldn’t poke through the rocks.
This only works for so long, we discovered and now we have two-foot tall weeds growing abundantly in several corners. They were luxuriously green. They got to their advanced height because my Significant Other read someplace that my favorite weed killer (the one that actually works) causes cancer, and I can’t pull the weeds because that would damage the plastic weed barrier and admit more weeds.
Eventually I got so sick of the weeds I pulled out the weed-killer when she wasn’t looking, and doused them thoroughly, wearing protective clothing (cargo shorts and flip-flops) to minimize my exposure to carcinogens. Now we have two-foot tall dead weeds in the yards, which is even more aesthetically displeasing, but at least it shows that we’re trying.
I really should go out and cut them down, but the cleaning person is coming tomorrow. I need to start concealing things that I want to see again before I do anything else.
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