Saturday, April 19, 2014

99.9% Germ Free, And Why I Get To Finally Feel Justified About My Lack Of Cleaning Skills

   I did it again; I opened the door to a man with a clipboard. What is this weird obsession that I have about opening the door to people with clipboards? I don't understand. But I digress, this man with the clipboard was claiming to be some kind of salesperson for a carpet cleaning company and what he wanted was to be allowed to come in and clean a section of my carpet for free as a sample of his work.
   Of course I said no. I am not a very trusting person at all, and there is no way in any kind of hell that I am letting some random stranger from some random company come into my home. I barely let friends and family come up in here. This is my space. If I were a cat, I'd spray the whole apartment down so bad you could smell the stench the next state over. Which is really gross, I admit, but the point is here, that I am a territorial person and there was no way that this man was coming in my apartment, even if my carpet could use shampooing like you  wouldn't believe.
   I think I have talked about the fact that I am no housekeeper. I hate to clean. I don't want to live in filth, so I keep my apartment picked up enough so that strange new life isn't forming in the fridge and the toilet bowl, but that's about as good as it gets: no strange new life forms. I think the last time I dusted was, well, when I first moved in. Wait a minute, about three months or so ago, my sister came over, and she wrote 'Wash Me' in the dust on my bookcase, and I did dust enough to erase her little love note. So if dusting off the words on a few shelves counts as dusting, then I dusted three months ago.
   I am waging a war with the pine needles that like to track into my apartment on the bottoms of people's shoes, so I actually vacuum quite often, but I don't know what the deal is with these pine needles liking to be in my apartment, because my carpet can start resembling the forest floor about five minutes after vacuuming; I don't get it. I do laundry about once a week, and my mom once told me that watching me take laundry out of the dryer was like watching clowns come out of those little tiny cars; they keep coming and coming and you wonder how they all managed to fit in there. I admit that I wash rather large loads, but that's only because I hate laundry with a passion; more than any other cleaning chore --  more that even scrubbing out the toilet. Larger loads = less loads. I do dishes regularly too; no new life forms in the sink either, but if I happen to have a large amount of company over, I make them all eat off of paper plates. I have no desire to wash massive amounts of dishes, even if I do happen to like the people eating off of them.
    What's the point of all my running down my list of cleaning habits (or lack thereof)? Well, the other day, my mother, who also happens to have like around twenty or so years of nursing experience was telling me that all those little anti-bacterial cleaning products, you know, the ones that kill 99.9% of all germs, are breeding super-viruses, or something like that. All this germ-free existence is: 1) not giving our immune systems a lot of practice fighting shit off, and 2) bacteria are evolving to be stronger than ever because we are giving them plenty of practice fighting. So this woman, who gave birth to me, who has known me for the whole 32 years of my life, is sitting there, in all earnestness, lecturing me about using too many anti-bacterial products, and telling me soap and water is just fine, and I am looking at her, saying "Mom, seriously? Nothing in this apartment is 99.9% germ free. I think our immune systems are getting plenty of practice here." She did concede the point; I think my sister better prepare herself for that lecture, because mom's preaching to the choir here.
    But regardless, maybe the next time some random carpet cleaner comes over to your house offering to clean your carpet, you should think of super-bacteria, and not let him in. That, or the fact that he just might be an ax-murderer. Either way, you're gonna die, so just make him stay his happy-ass outside. 

No comments:

Post a Comment