Having Company

“Dad!  It’s Saturday!  Why do we have to work?”

“We’re not working,” I reply.  “We’re cleaning up the house.”

“Why today?  It’s Saturday!”

“I know,” I say patiently, “but we’re having company, a special houseguest for a few days.”

“Grandma?” my daughter says.  “Grandma’s not special.  She’s like one of us.”

“That’s true,” I reply, “but she likes a clean house.”

“But Dad, we’ve already got the cleanest house of any of my friends.  Nobody lives in a house this clean!”

And so, as we clean, I tell her something she doesn’t know about her grandma, my mother, who is a fanatic. Not about everything, of course; but in her efforts and attitudes about housecleaning, she is a tyrant.

For her, having a clean house has always been next to a religion.  I’ve been told by those who knew her when she was first married that she would empty ashtrays used by guests—not just frequently, but between puffs!

I know from first-hand witness that she would ‘straighten and tidy a bit’ before the cleaning-lady arrived every two weeks.  And later, she would give everything ‘just a quick once-over’ to make sure it was done to her exacting standards.

In some homes, laundry-day was Monday, ironing-day was Tuesday, shopping-day was Thursday, and so on.  In our house, cleaning-day was every day.

As a boy, I was taught to clean my bedroom, make my bed, and keep my things tidy.  In that way, my mother knew nothing would be lying around to interfere when I dusted the bedroom furniture and vacuumed the floor.

“And wow!  Was she ever thorough!” I explain to my daughter.  “Why, I actually had to ‘comb out’ the fringe on my bedroom rug.  For years my fringe was combed more neatly than my hair.”

At this, my daughter casts a sceptical glance at my messy curls.

I went on to explain how I learned early that clothes were not to be left lying about when I took them off.  Shoes were to be put in the shoe-bag hanging on the back of my closet door.  Toys were to be put away when I finished with them, even if I planned to play with them again later.

So well did my mother enforce these rules that once, after she had showed a new neighbour through the house, the lady asked if she had any children.

“Of course, none of the daily routine had any impact upon spring housecleaning,” I tell my daughter.

“Spring what?” she asks.

“Housecleaning,” I repeat.  “I never knew why we had to go through that every year, because I never found any dirt.  I guess it allowed Grandma to move the furniture around, to try a new arrangement.”

Actually, that was the part I used to like the best.  Everything in a room would be moved from its accustomed place into the centre by my mother, on her own.  Although she isn’t particularly big, she’s always been quite strong.  I used to wonder if maybe she could exercise the same control over inanimate objects as she did over me.

In any case, the furniture would be standing in higgledy-piggledy fashion in the middle of the room.  It created all manner of crawl-ways and caves that I could explore.  The most mundane of items became exotic and exciting caverns and hideaways in the chaotic sculpture of furniture.

While I crept in and around the pile, my mother would join me on her hands and knees.  Unlike me, however, she would be waxing the hardwood floor.  I always wondered why, since it was invariably still shiny from the last time.

The biggest mystery of all was that, after each piece of furniture was moved back into place, the rug would be rolled to be sent out for cleaning.  My mother would then wax the floor under the carpet!

“Under the rug?” my daughter exclaims incredulously.  “Why would Grandma do that?”

I shrug, still puzzled to this day.  I mean, nobody ever saw that part of the floor unless they came through while the rug was still up.

“She used to say that people could eat off her floors,” I tell my daughter.  “And she was really proud of that.”

That never actually happened, though.  Eat off my mother’s floors?  Why, no one would dare drop food on the floor in the first place.  I know, because I did it once.

But only once!

A couple of hours after my daughter and I have finished tidying the house, the doorbell announces my mother.  My daughter is first to the door, and we spend a minute or so in kisses, hugs, and exclamations of delight at seeing each other again.

“C’mon, Grandma,” my daughter says, “I’ll show you your room.  It’s really, really clean!”

“I’m sure it is, sweetie,” my mother laughs, tossing a quizzical glance my way.

I shrug nonchalantly.

As they head up the stairs, I hear my daughter say, “I bet it’s as clean as your house used to be, Grandma.  We even cleaned under the rug in your room!”

“Under the rug?” my mother exclaims incredulously.  “Why, that’s wonderful!”

Sometimes having a houseguest is really special.

_{© J. Bradley Burt 2022}