Taking me to the cleaners
The other day, the lovely and talented Candice posted a story about keeping the heezie clean, which was perfect timing for my own story from this weekend.
I don’t like secrets, neither to hold them or to have them kept from me. If there is any notion - at all - that something is being kept from me, I will bug relentlessly until I am satisfied that there will be no surprises. I may or may not hack into people’s e-mails and Facebooks to help me with my investigative work, too. (And by “people’s” I mean “Travis’s”.) (Unless Travis is reading this, and then I totally mean other people.)
Not long after we got married and moved into our house in Denver, I had a cleaning lady come by after I realized that 2300 square feet was too much work for my lazy ass. She told me she’d be happy to clean our place for $100 a pop.
I told Travis that the cleaning lady would be coming every other week at $100 a visit, and he FREAKED out. That was too much money, we’re on a budget, am I insane? And yada yada.
But the cleaning lady, on the other hand, had three children and this was her only job and she was really sweet. I couldn’t really tell her she was fired before she was even hired.
So I did what any young newlywed housewife would do - I told her to come once a month, instead. And since I managed the checkbook, a certain husband would never be the wiser. And plus? I could totally win good housewife points for keeping the abode so spotless. Win-win.
Last weekend, something bubbled up in me as we were cleaning. I asked Travis if he ever wondered why we never had to clean the house in Denver but here we had to clean it every week. Then, I spilled the beans.
After the expected response of “WHAT THE FUCK?” and “What OTHER secrets do you have?” he laughed at me. And then he asked if I ever took credit for her cleaning efforts.
The answer to that, my friends, is a secret I’m not prepared to share yet.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:37 am
that is HILARIOUS. some boys out there (mostly Indian husbands, in my experience) have NO IDEA how much work it takes to keep a house clean.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
That’s a damn good idea - hmmmmm- that gives me much to think about! I’m sure my husband and cat would totally oblige!