Domestically challenged
I’m not good at cleaning. It’s taken my husband about 11 years to figure this out – or at least accept it. He calls me “domestically challenged.”
Before you get all “What a chauvinist, why isn’t he doing the cleaning too!” let me tell you, the man is an awesome Urban Daddy, works 60-70 hours a week and cleans with me on the weekends. I find it hard to do two kids, a full-time job and all of the extracurriculars, plus cook, clean, shop and still have some ‘me’ time here and there. But the fact is, I am not a good cleaner. Some people are. Some people even enjoy it. Not me.
We had been together for about three years, and had been in our home for about a year. One day I called him and asked, “Honey, where is the broom.” I had spilled an entire box of cereal on the floor. His response? “It’s right beside the mop.” So I made the mistake of asking, “Okay, where do we keep the mop?” He hung up on me. So why did it take him 8 more years to conclude I was domestically challenged? The writing was most definitely on the wall.
We don’t focus on clean. We try to keep it not messy and accept that we are busy people and would rather devote our time to our kids than to cleaning. From time to time our house gets a bit – out of control. It gets beyond needing the basic dusting, vacuuming, wipe-down, and when that happens, I call in the troops. Our place isn’t that big and it is well worth the money to save my sanity – and his – by hiring someone to clean our home and get it back to ship shape so that our slow but inevitable descent into out-of-control can start anew.
The thing is, I’m too embarrassed to hire someone in my neighbourhood. I worry that if I take the recommendation from a friend or neighbour, that my cleaner may narc on me. Talk about paranoid – but I don’t want word of my domestic shortcomings circulating around the neighbourhood. People talk. I’d rather have them talk about my bad parking – but that’s another story altogether. So I hire a perfect stranger – which comes with all of its own problems. You never know if they’re going to do a great job. You never know if they’re going to take advantage. You never know if they’re even going to show up!
Fact is, I’m going to cut this rant short, because today, they DIDN’T show up and I feel obligated to go do the work myself.
Who am I kidding. I’m going to convince my husband to go out for the day while I make some calls to see if anyone else wants the job on short notice.
