Cleanliness is next to cleanout. Go look in the dictionary.

Good morgen! As they would sort of say in Germany!! It is Sunday and it is CLEANING DAY. WHOOOOOOO! WHOO!

Okay, trying to get excited about stupid cleaning day.

I know I have mentioned this to you before, but the last time I mentioned it was January, and perhaps you have -- I don't know -- lived your life since then and you have forgotten, so I will reiterate.

Because I can no longer just call the cleaning lady, I have been doing the Martha Stewart cleaning technique from her Homekeeping Handbook. Go get this book if you want to know how to do anything in your house. Need to know how to have a lovely entryway? Which just sounded dirty but I meant your vestibule? Look at the Martha Stewart Homekeeping book! How long to keep your cosmetics? I think you know where to look.

So I am going to do each step of her Weekly Cleaning techniques and report back to you, so that (a) I have someone reading this and keeping track of me and (2) (...I never cease to think it's funny to say "a" then "2." When does my hilarity stop?) you can see what a fine, not-at-all never-ending time it is.

First, old Mart has six things you are supposed to do every day, like make the bed. I usually do none of those six things. Then she has these weekly tasks, then monthly, seasonal, SPRING (I am not kidding), then specific fall jobs. You know that heifer is doing none of these. Her staff has to do them, and they all want to bitch slap her.

Today I am only doing the weekly tasks. And I promise it'll take all dang day. Here we go:

10:29 a.m. I am starting with wiping everything in the kitchen.

10:31 a.m. I cannot find ANY rags. I find 8,945 towels, but no rags. Marvin is in there eating a watermelon while standing over the sink, and he says towels and cleaning rags are the same thing. I am already annoyed with him because he is getting pits everywhere. I am using an old t-shirt as a rag.

11:06 a.m. Seriously. That's how long that took me. I wiped cupboards, appliances, the oven, the furniture, you name it. My only distraction was when I cut the t-shirt into more manageable pieces and also when I was wiping an old mason jar and thought, "Wouldn't it be pretty if I gathered up all the sea glass and put it in this jar" which I did. Okay. Next I have to wipe the INSIDES (geez) of everything and flush the drain with boiling water.

11:39 a.m. Waiting for the STUPID water to boil, I managed the next three steps, including (yes) washing inside and outside the trash can.

[Two cleaning tips from June -- and yes, it is frightening that you would take cleaning tips from June -- if you boil your water in the microwave, it's then easier to clean inside said microwave. Also, a way to clean the trash can? Take the bag out and use it as the pail for washing the floor.]

11:57 a.m. The kitchen? It is done. Only 78 rooms to go.

12:21 p.m. Floors everywhere? Swept. Used the Swiffer-type thing (which my mother always. always calls a "Swifter" no matter how many times I correct her) AND the vacuum. Am disgusted at size of dust bunnies given that we have only lived here five weeks and that I have "Swiftered" before. Also increasingly annoyed that Marvin G. has apparently become centipede, as he has left 12 pairs of shoes in each room.

12:37 p.m. Have managed to take perfectly lovely, shiny tiles in kitchen and hallway and by washing them with Dawn dishwashing liquid, turn then into the dullest floors imaginable. It is like your 8th grade algebra teacher were the floor. The floors are comparable to a statistics book, advanced edition. I mean dull.

I am going to eat something, because I feel weak and shaky and realized all I have consumed today is black coffee.

12:54 p.m. Feeling emboldened by lasagna and a peach grown right here in our town, I soldier on to dust and to vacuum living room furniture.

1:24 p.m. Enter living room to find Marvin and our cat Francis luxuriating on couch. Both scatter, horrified, when I come stomping in with my Old English. Why, whyyyyyyyy do we own so much wood? In that room there are two bookshelves, an old chest used as coffee table, a Victrola, a PIANO, and an old radio that is four feet tall, which Winston hangs out in (see visual aid). Next up? Bathroom.


2:23 p.m. Have cleaned toilet, bathtub, sink, mirror and floor. I have dusted the light fixture and am laundering all throw rugs and blankets in house. Am beginning to detest Martha Stewart. Am beginning to wonder if this book is why she went to prison. Would love 10 minutes in prison with Martha and a shiv.


2:51 p.m. Dusted in dining room. If you think I moved the 4,756 knickknacks to dust under them, you would be wrong. Upon entering guest room to write in blog, find Marvin napping on guest bed. Think again of shiv.


3:06 p.m. Fluffed sofa pillows, threw away old catalogs and sorted the mail. Began putting away clean throw rugs and pillows, if they are dry. Swept front porch and walkway. Begin thinking of great-grandmother, who had a cleaning problem. She used to scrub the sidewalks, and my grandfather said if you got up to pee in the night, when you came back she had already made the bed. Wonder if she was this miserable. Wonder why I didn't inherit her need to clean.

Wonder why I was ever born.


3:21 p.m. Dusted spines and tops of all books, all ceiling fans and electronic equipment. Remember, this bitch expects you to do all this EVERY WEEK. What the hell is WRONG with this Nazi? If I were an Indian goddess with eight arms AND I was on speed, I could not do all of this. As I am dusting the phone, it rings. Marvin, taking his microwave popcorn out, yells, "PHONE!"


I being wondering if any of my old boyfriends are still single.


3:36 p.m. She STILL expects me to change and launder sheets and pillowcases in each bedroom, DUST in each bedroom and clean all the windows. Oh, and vacuum all the vents. I have been working for FIVE HOURS. I am sweaty, and decidedly cranky. I am giving up on this stupid woman and her stupid, stupid book. After all, tomorrow is another day.