From the mind of...

I am a cleanaholic. I clean to the point of marital discord at times. It is a sickness that is inbred and has formed over previous generations and was reluctantly passed down to me. The older I get, the more I need things to be clean and in order. Now, don’t get me wrong….I’m not like Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets washing-my-hands-10,000-times-a-day crazy, but I may be close. If there was a Nobel Peace Prize for cleanliness as a disorder I would certainly be a front runner. I believe a clean house is a sign of personal pride. You will never visit my house unexpectedly and find it dirty…ever. You might find a couple piles of paper that my clutterbug husband has left laying around that I have yet to throw out without his permission, and occassionally you will find 2 hour dust, but dirty…NEVER.

I clean like most people show emotions. Sometimes I clean to release pent up anger and frustration, sometimes just because the sun is shining and it feels good to blare the radio, crack a window and clean my ass off, sometimes just because it just needs to be done, and sometimes because it’s just fun to dance around the house in my PJ’s dusting to the beat of the music and singing into bottles of Windex. If you were to ask my husband, he would probably say that sometimes I clean just to start an argument. I think his rationale is that I go overboard and clean just so I have a reason to yell at people for not picking up after themselves. If this is the case, couldn’t it also be said that he is trying to start a fight by not picking up his shit when he knows I will go crazy, psycho, PMS, crazy on him if I trip over his shoes one more time or have to scrub the glass rings off the table for the thousandth time? But, I digress.

Cleaning the house keeps my mind uncluttered and free to think of other things. Things like misspelled Craigslist ads that make me and my husband laugh when they say they want people skilled in electricity and “plumbery”, or when I read over his shoulder and mistake the words “bolt cutters” for “butt shackles”. I think about things like stupid girls who drive 88 impalas in the country with signs across their windshield that reads “I am THAT bitch” and it leaves me wondering all day what kind of bitch that might be? I think about people who leave the house to go to lunch wearing pajama pants. Would it have taken that much effort to run a brush through your nappy hair and slap on a pair of jeans? These are just a few of my favorite things…..

I like cleanliness. I like the smell of floor cleaner and furniture polish almost as much as I enjoy the smell of fresh baked apple pie. I have an obsessive personality. I am a perfectionist. I will get off the couch when I am covered up, cozy and dozing off to move a picture half an inch back into place. I realize this has no relevance in anyone elses world, but I enjoy thinking out loud and working through my issues in public. It is part of the insanity that is me, and I am ok with it, just as I am learning to become ok with so many other things about myself. Deal with it because maybe, just maybe I am THAT bitch!