The lazy cleaner...

I admit wholeheartedly that there is a part of me which is inherently lazy. I also admit that there is a part of me which is more than a little bit OCD when it comes to cleaning.

On occasion these two facets of my psyche face off and come to blows. (The OCD cleaner occasionally compromises, and the lazy occasionally goads the cleaner into a little naptime/procrastination, but in the end the cleaner always wins.)

I should point out that in the grand spectrum of things, I am a cleaner anyway. (And if anything, having the job that I have makes me even more of a cleaner because I see ALL KINDS OF NASTINESS all day.) But I also acknowledge that there have been times when the cleaner has gone on strike, giving laziness the rule of the land.

My weekends are prime time for these two to go head to head and duke it out. The laziness screams out, "BITCH PLEASE! We've been working all week! I'm taking a nap!" While the cleaner hollers, "What crap-hatchery! Your lazy ass needs to vacuum, take out the trash, and I think I spotted some soap scum in the shower... Oh, and there are water spots in your sink basin!" (I told you that the cleaner was a little OCD... Because if there's any place where it's acceptable to have water spots, it's in the sink basin, but for some reason the cleaner is really irritated by stuff like that!)

So today, after turning in my weekly paperwork, a case summary, my schedule, my coverage sheets, and running to the bank, the cleaner got antsy. "Hey, I know you just got done doing all that important stuff so that you can get paid and all, but since you don't have anything else to do today, I'm thinking that you REALLY ought to wash your car... And vacuum it out. And scrub the upholstery. And god, those windows are filthy inside and out, and you know while you're at it, you might as well shine up the dashboard and console with that armor-all stuff." (She's a bit of a nag, that cleaner is!) Meanwhile the lazy oaf yawned and said, "We got up early! Why are we thinking about that instead of going home and going back to bed?" (The lazy oaf is AWESOMELY lazy.)

So I listened to them yammer for a little while... They bicker like little old women.

And in the end, the cleaner won... Like I said, she always does.

And so I went and washed the car. And I vacuumed it out. And I did the windows inside and out. And then I went and got the armor-all stuff and shined everything up. The cleaner was pleased.

The lazy oaf was SCREAMING, "ENOUGH! It's time for a nap... or at least a little mindless television viewing!" The cleaner relented knowing that the car was clean. (It should be noted that since part of my job entails hauling around some seriously grubby kiddos all week, I don't make a habit of deep cleaning my car, certainly not enough for the cleaner's liking. Because that's when the practical side pipes in and says, "Listen. This is STUPID. Why spend the time, money, and effort when it's all going to be grubby again five minutes into your next work week." The cleaner occasionally argues with practicality, and occasionally she wins, but practicality oftentimes gets the better of the cleaner... And the car is totally the domain of my practicality.)

So the car was clean, and the laziness was pissed off because she was being ignored to this point. I elected to appease the laziness with a little Dr. Phil... After all, it was my day off, and Laziness LOVES Dr. Phil, because not only is it mindless television, it's watching total crazies who dress and act like normal people part of the time, but still end up on the boob tube because underneath that shiny facade they are really just nine kinds of crazy. After an hour of Dr. Phil and thirty minutes of Jeopardy, the cleaner was feeling a little antsy. "Hey, you're not sleeping... You could be cleaning! You SHOULD be cleaning! You really ought to go through that bin where you dump your mail all the time. And the dishwasher needs loading. And the trash is going to start smelling if you don't take it out. And after all of that, I'm thinking that the vacuum really REALLY needs to be run... I mean you didn't come home and vacuum at all this week, did you?"
The laziness and I exchanged a look which could most easily be translated as, "Oh brother... She's on a cleaning bender, isn't she? It's easier to just let her have her way when she's like this."

So I did all that, and I folded laundry, and scrubbed the bathroom. And thus I appeased the cleaner. Or so I thought. Laziness and I were just sitting down for a late afternoon snooze in my comfy new chair, and the cleaner piped in once more. While sitting there, the cleaner busted out the Judge Judy voice and said, Uh-bup bup bup BUP, MISSY! You're just sitting there! While you were going through that mail bin, you found your jewelry cleaning cloth, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU! ...I think you really ought to go and polish some stuff! You know it needs it! And you can do it sitting down... That ought to make you happy!" I polished a few things, and then told the cleaner to shove it. Laziness and I were teaming up and beating the cleaner into submission.

So I had a really productive day, and then I got that nap I'd been craving all along. Since then I've been e-mailing some friends, and trying to come up with a blog post which wasn't quite so lame as this one has been... The laziness set up a picket line in the writer's block region of the brain, and thus prevented me from getting all creative and coming up with something better, so this is what you get.