Aw, nuts

My ‘To Do’ list is way too short on the fun stuff, and way too long on the really-rather-not stuff. Basically, I’ve got “clean entire house”, a bonus chore of dusting the floor moldings (yes, I really do dust the stupid floor molding and yes, I know it is very 50s of me), and doing the yardwork.

I already did the “fun” stuff: read my online national newspapers, check my stocks, and so forth. So what am I left with?

Clean the damned house.

What is it with this house, anyway? Why can’t it just…stay clean? For, like, five minutes?

Didn’t I just do that whole house-cleaning thing?!

But I can see from here that the house is very much not clean. Shoot, I’m sitting at the kitchen table right now, and there are crumbs from this morning’s muffins all over it. Even though I wiped it down after breakfast, yet – there are still crumbs on it.

I know why they’re there, too. It’s because someone put some muffin in a pocket or under the couch or something, then brought it back to the table later. No, seriously. They do this. What happens is, they eat a few bites and declare themselves “done” so they can go to battle with their siblings over toys and so forth. But they’re not really done, and they know it. So what they do is palm some of their food and squirrel it away for later. I think they do that in case snack is not to their liking. Because sometimes, Mom gets on this kick where she’ll insist on giving you things like celery with peanut butter and raisins for snack. Blech! What’s wrong with cheese and crackers, or Ritz crackers with peanut butter on them, or apples with cinnamon? Celery = green food, and green food = evil.

The bathroom mirrors are coated in soap, toothpaste, and other flecks I’d really rather not identify, thanks all the same. The floors have an even layer of dust, sand, little rocks, and toys. Junk mail, receipts, cookbooks, bank statements, old socks and stuff I’ve been meaning to deal with all week are covering every level surface in the house, from the desks to the built-ins to the top of my dresser.

On the plus side, that does mean I’ll have less dusting to do, right? One I’ve picked up the stuff?!

Oh well. The stuff isn’t going to pick up itself. And the vacuum isn’t going to run itself. And if I don’t get the crumbs off the floor, Bacon Bit is going to eat them – and they might be little shreds of tuberculosis or streptococci or something equally awful.

OK. I’m off. I’m going now…unless, of course, someone’s posted something interesting on the Living Below Your Means board over at the Motley Fool…