Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Odd-ful memories

So this morning I was cleaning my toilet (sexy, no?), and I started thinking back on my childhood. You see, Mom was like Dad's personal secretary and therefore, he hired maids to handle the household maintenance cleaning.

I still had my chores. I still did my laundry and cleaned my room. I still made my bed and kept the bathroom picked up. But probably the most bizarre is that even though I did that stuff, the maids re-did them.

It was a rule that I strip and make my bed with clean sheets. The maid re-made the bed, sometimes after ironing my sheets (what's that about anyway?). I had to clean the toilet, before the maid re-cleaned the toilet. I cleaned the bathroom counter tops, then the maid would re-clean them. I think the only thing that wasn't duplicated was dish washing.

I never understood it. I'm pretty good at cleaning, folks. Damn good, actually, and I'm a tidy person. I don't think it was the life lesson on how to clean that caused my parents to insist on pre-cleaning. No, I think it was pride. I think they wanted everyone to believe (even the maids), that we were perfectly sparkly clean all the time and having a maid was just a perk.

Or perhaps that the dirtiest we got as a family, was still super lemony-fresh scented, and dust free. Which is stupid. It's like my father's insistence that the lawn be watered all day, every day, even in the rain, at the expense of the household water pressure. But he's retired and that's his weird little obsession since he no longer has an office filled with people to boss around (I'm guessing).

While I don't have maids, I still keep things clean. I do run around and frantically OVER-clean before someone comes over, even though it's already tidy, maybe a carry-over from the early years, I dunno. But is it just me, or is the pre-clean, cleaning a little weird? And they're maids! I'm not saying make extra mess just to watch them work (although, really, that's your prerogative since you're PAYING for them to clean stuff), but doesn't that mean you're allowed to actually let them clean, dirty stuff for you? Isn't that the point?

Okay. I have another bathroom to clean...

Mia

6 comments:

Julia Rachel Barrett said...

Cleaning bathrooms...a girlfriend and I ran a cleaning service to make money when we were in college - it was always interesting. The bathrooms were my gag moment. Then there were the condoms on the floor moments in the bachelor's house...
I'm glad you're a good cleaner! You are an excellent house guest!

Unknown said...

I cleaned houses some years ago and let me tell you some people are disgusting. We cleaned doctor's houses who left dirty feminine products on the bedroom floor and gross stuff like that. I let my former mother in law clean that crap. Hey, I didn't like her anyway. lol

Mia Watts said...

Okay, yeah, those are both super gross. We were never that dirty. There's that sense of embarrassment when you can't be bothered to take care of obvious messes. Or at least there should be. Ew.

I just never understood why I had to scrub and clean, wipe and wash only to have my work re-done. Seriously? I'm a spotless cleaner.

Regina Carlysle said...

I think it's kind of like the concept of washing and drying your hair BEFORE you go to the beauty shop. Feels so weirdly repetitive but we do it anyway. I had a maid for many many years and I still straightened and cleaned a bit before she got here to do it all over again.

Chris said...

I can never allow you into my condo.

Anny Cook said...

The cleaning before the cleaning service gets there is pretty common. A lot of people don't want the cleaning service to know how they REALLY live...