My Eight-seventh Post

When I was little, we lived in a very small house. Well, it never seemed all that small to me, but looking back, it definitely was. Especially considering the number of people that lived there. We basically had seven kids divided up between two bedrooms: the three boys in one, and the four girls in the other. There was an excess of stuff and shortage of space. Our bedroom floor was literally covered in a generous layer of toys and games at all times. Every once in a while we would have to clean our room and it was torture. I can’t believe how mean mothers can be.

Since cleaning is not intrinsically fun to children, we had to come up with ways to do it that would entertain us. The most common tactic involved the two older girls sitting on the top bunks “fishing” for toys and such. They would each have a makeshift fishing pole consisting of a sturdy stick, some sort of string, and an old ice cream bucket. They would lower their buckets, and my little sister and I would have to fill the bucket with the specific type of toy they requested (Barbies, crayons, Polly Pockets, etc.). You’d think this sorting ritual would have some sort of positive effect on the organization of our room. It really didn’t as all of the items they “caught” were pretty much just dumped into the toy box or into the lesser used side of the closet. (We probably would have utilized the space under our beds as well, but it was too valuable to during our fort-building efforts)

[Aside: I just remembered that in my childhood, I was very lazy, but rather resourceful. I would stay up late at night reading in my bed, but when I was ready to go to sleep, I was too comfortable to get up and turn off the light. So I fitted several long cardboard tubes together to form a collapsible “light-dousing” device that I kept by my bed. It was just long enough that if I stretched, I could just reach the light switch from the comfort of my bed. Brilliant.]

When the cleaning was done, we would proudly escort our mother into the room to show off our handiwork. As long as we had avoided putting laundry or dishes in the toy box, she would smile and declare our room officially “clean.”

Sometimes I feel like I’m still using the same tactic in my life today. My life is a complete mess; every once in a while, it gets to the point that I can’t stand it anymore. I find that if I just shove everything into the closet (I actually do do that, but I’m trying to be metaphorical here, not literal), I can live under the guise of having a perfect life—for at least a few weeks or so.

So maybe it’s not the best long-term strategy, but it sure is satisfying to look around and not see the mess every once in a while. Satisfying indeed.



Also, don’t add vanilla to homemade honey-butter. It’s just weird. It's not so much the taste as the smell that's weird, but still. Don't do it.