Veni, Vidi, Vici

I love to cook but have never been good at housekeeping, and I don’t have any aspirations in that direction either. I just don’t see the point to it. If I sweep the floors or dust the furniture, they will just get crumb-y and dusty again; and as for cleaning the house from top to bottom before company comes, forget it. If your guests are real friends, they won’t be put off by a few dust bunnies. Besides, any normal person would want to make friends with someone who makes fantastic biscotti; but what kind of a neatness freak would say, “Let’s get together so you can show me how you keep your refrigerator so spotless.”


This will not surprise my family. One Christmas after we were all married, my mom had a grown-up piñata for us. It was full of wrapped but unlabeled presents; so, as we opened them, we had to guess who they were for. Choosing the recipient of the Odor-Eaters for smelly shoes was a slam-dunk at the time, although now I can’t remember if it was my brother or my sister. When my dad opened up a plaque with the saying, “Nobody ever died of oven-crud poisoning,” everyone cried in unison, “That’s for Jill.” So what? Paul has claimed the title of El Primo Housekeeper since he was in dental school, and I don’t want to muscle in on his territory or damage his self esteem.

I do, however, find satisfaction in straightening out cupboards and drawers when the planets are aligned correctly and I am not in the middle of a good book. This week’s cool weather and a shopping trip to Rookwood Commons put me in the mood to shake things up in my closets. Fortified with a handful of chocolate chips and feeling particularly ruthless, I laid siege to my large, walk-in bedroom closet, which is big enough to hold both summer and winter clothes.

Out went three pairs of pants, two sweaters and one dress that I’ve kept for the past 5 years because I’d look good in them if I ever lost 10 pounds.  Out went one pair of shoes that are a sprained ankle waiting to happen and two more pairs of shoes that, in three years, haven’t loosened up enough to feel comfortable for more than about 10 minutes.  (Why did I buy them? Well, if you’re a woman, you don’t need to ask that question and if you’re a man, I’m not going to try to explain.)  Out went 16 dust covered belts since I can’t remember the last time I wore a blouse tucked in and have no plans to do so in the future.  Out went a mustard yellow knit top when I realized that even if I tried it on 500 more times in 500 different kinds of lighting, it would still make me look like I belonged on a hot dog.  And, in a supremely liberating moment, out went a bunch of scarves because I finally admitted that I am a scarf-ly-challenged person who has no clue how to drape them, tie them or wear them without constantly rearranging them.  I stuffed my pile of rejects into five bags and immediately took them to the Goodwill Store before any of them could appeal my decision.

This afternoon, the cleaning rampage turned to my kitchen junk drawer, the catch-all for anything that doesn’t have a place somewhere else in the house. By the way, junk drawers are an amazing phenomenon, and I can’t truly relate to anyone who doesn’t keep at least one. Although I don’t believe in ghosts, pyramid power or any other supernatural stuff, I have had direct, personal experience with the regenerative powers of junk drawers. Probably half a dozen times over the past 10 years, I have given a “Junk Drawer Starter Kit” as a bridal shower gift. I’ve filled a quart sized ziploc bag with pencils, pennies, golf tees, matches, buttons, toothpicks, paper clips, crayons, reinforcements, peppermints, etc. from my own junk drawers and instructed the bride-to-be to dump the contents into an empty drawer and wait a month. “Voila!” Not only does the new household have a well established junk drawer but mine refills itself; and I’ve got plenty for the next shower gift. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

So, after I conquered the kitchen drawer, I attacked the lower level closet where I keep all of my boxes, tissue paper, gift bags, wrapping paper and ribbons. It took only about fifteen minutes to turn that storage area into something that would warm Martha Stewart’s heart - not really a serious challenge. I am now ready to whip my linen closet into shape and to reorganize all of our travel materials, which are currently fighting for space with a ton of Paul’s office checks, deposit slips and old invoices; that is, unless I give in to temptation and start reading “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.”

This winter, Paul and I plan to go through all of our storage areas and eliminate even more stuff – or at least that’s my plan and Paul will go along with it as long as I don’t make him throw out any radios or records. Radios, regardless of their condition, have been off limits for a long time; but I learned my lesson about records just last spring. While exercising, Paul was trying to listen to “Sex Life of the Primate,” a crackly, scratched comedy record that had belonged to a pair of notorious LP abusers, my parents.

“It’s not like my records,” he complained, finally shutting it off. “It’s unplayable.”
“So,” I said, seizing the moment, “you’re going to throw it out?”
Dead silence followed. I finally decided to play the understanding wife and said, “That’d be like cutting off your finger, right?”
“Yeah,” he replied, and back it went into the stack of records.

I think I’ll wait until David and John have made definite plans to come to Cincinnati for the holidays before I tell them it’s time to go through the boxes of their stuff that have been sitting, unopened, on cupboard shelves since we moved here seven years ago. I’m even willing to use Christmas cookies as a bribe. It could be a lot of fun, and it will definitely be more satisfying than scrubbing the bathroom floor.