I’ve been upping my cleaning game.
The obvious reason is that I want to wipe away germs and viruses now more than ever. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Covid-19.)
But the other reason is that when spending record levels of time inside my own four walls, I want the place to look nice.
I’ve never been a slob. But I am the descendent of two clean freaks: my mother, and my great-grandmother. These two elevate tidying up to a whole new level. Marie Kondo has nothing on them.
So my own laissez-fair attitude toward dust and soap scum meant I wasn’t living up my genetic cleanliness potential.
I started kicking it up a notch on frequency—vacuuming and scrubbing down the bathrooms, being more diligent in the kitchen.
(Blinker, by the way, is decidedly not on board with this program. While cats are fastidious in their own bathing and cleanliness, they fear nothing so much as the vacuum cleaner. As soon as I roll it out of the closet, she makes a beeline to hide under the bed until the death machine stops roaring.)
But I had more in mind than just a supercharged regular cleaning schedule. I wanted to tackle some big jobs that were long overdue. I started by deep cleaning the grill and the oven, two rather disgusting jobs that take a lot of elbow grease. I figured it was best to get the toughest items checked off first.
Then I decided to do a thorough cleaning under the bed. My bed is huge and heavy, and with eight legs, impossible for me to move by myself. Now and then I reached beneath it with the vacuum cleaner, but I was never really able to reach beneath the headboard.
With the help of my dad and some furniture mover coasters from Lowes, we pulled the bed away from the wall.
And stood in shock at the horror before us.
Reader, I can’t believe I’m even showing you the evidence of my filth.
There was a carpet of cat hair over the regular carpet. It was so thick I could’ve made Blinker a second coat with it. I used a squeegee to rake it from the baseboards and form it into a football size mass.
This wasn’t a dust bunny. This was a dust dinosaur.
I didn’t even use the vacuum. It would’ve clogged that thing like a stopped drain. I just picked that dust football up with my hands and punted it out the window.
The only place that’s been untouched longer than behind the bed is the attic.
I’m still working up the courage to open that can of worms.
Or should I say can of dust?