It’s the most stressful day of the month. It’s C. L. Day, the day the Cleaning Lady comes to our house. A week before C.L. (Cleaning Lady) Day, my wife hands me a list of chores. It reads like this.
– Clean off the top of your dresser and dust it.
– Check under the bed for house slippers and any dust bunnies.
– Take out the trash cans in every room and clean them with Clorox.
– Get the step stool and dust the tops of the ceiling fan blades
– Check the silverware drawer to make sure the knives, forks and spoons are in the right slots.
– Look in the refrigerator and make sure none of the jars are past expiration date.
– Check your golf club bag and put the covers on the woods
– Organoze your tackle box
– Empty the dishwasher and sort the Tupperware
– Sweep the front sidewalk in case she comes in that way and restack the logs in your wood pile. They are all askew.
I have come to understand that after many years of marriage that men and women do not think the same way. A man would say, “Good. The Cleaning Lady is coming to clean the house.”
While a woman says, “We must make sure the house is spotless, so she won’t think I am a bad housekeeper.”
Does it really matter what the Cleaning Lady thinks – as long as she gets paid?
Apparently, yes.
On C.L. Days I am shooed out of the house like a stray cat nosing around the trash can.
“Find something to do and stay out of her way,” are my instructions.
So, I go grocery shopping for four hours. By the time I am finished, and the Cleaning Lady has gone, all the frozen vegetables have thawed, and the milk has gone bad. But I come home to a clean house – a really clean house. She does a very good job. I’m just thankful C.L. Day only comes once a month.