Confessions of a Company Cleaner

Confessions of a Company Cleaner
By Chris Sherman

My single, care-free brother calls.
“Hey. What are you doing tonight?”
“When tonight? Dinner time or bedtime?”
“Before dinner.”
“Before dinner I’m making dinner.”
“Oh. Sounds like fun.”
“This is the real world David. I don’t have a five-star chef on retainer.”
“Right. Well, here’s the thing. I’ve met this really fabulous girl and I’d like to bring her over before we go to dinner so you can meet her.”
Now I’ve met more of his “fabulous” girls over the years than I care to remember and I must say I usually like two out of three of them more than I like him. This inevitably forces me to pull the woman into the kitchen, thrust cab fare into her hand and push her out the door, the way one would push a person out of the way of an oncoming truck. Another innocent life saved.
“And I really do like her, so no taking her into the kitchen. See you at six.”
I look around at my messy house and I have a quick, mini-fantasy. I wiggle my nose sending brooms, buckets, mops and sundry cleaning supplies flying out of cupboards and closets. I am fantastically “Bewitched.” The three children, for they are the only ones who can undo the spell, the only ones who can unclean something immediately after it has been cleaned, are mercifully duck taped to the kitchen chairs, where they remain writhing and whimpering until the door bell rings.
You see, (and here’s my confession,) I only clean for company. This leads me to the logical conclusion that if it weren’t for the occasional guest, the board of health would shut me down. My children would come home from school to find crime scene tape over the door and we would be forced to live on the streets until I could prove to the authorities that I can, in fact, keep the card board box allotted to me under the bridge clean and tidy. We’d all be scarred for life, especially the children, as we return to our home, vowing to try harder, do better and to put cleanliness right up there with Godliness. So, to avoid all this, as one would avoid cheating on one’s spouse or smoking crack, given the ramifications, I clean.
But only when company is imminent.
Well, come on. I mean, if I happen to see more than a fair amount of dust balls rolling by the television set, or wafting up from under the fridge, I do have the presence of mind to pick up the phone and invite someone over, thus giving me the impetus to clean. I try to maintain a certain level of cleanliness for health reasons, but what would be the purpose of cleaning if there’s no one around to admire my handiwork? It’s like, if you dust under the dining room server, and there’s no one coming over for dinner, is it still considered clean?
In Victorian times, and there is actual documentation of this by people who have a bit too much time on their hands, women would clean obsessively to ward of big, scary diseases like the bubonic plague or tuberculosis. And they had it much worse than modern women with our Swiffers and sprays. Soot covered everything due to coal burning stoves, gas lamps and fireplaces. They must have had guests for tea and crumpets three, four times a week, just to keep up. (I generalize women as cleaners because even the most politically correct would have to admit men don’t actually clean, they tidy up, which is definitely NOT the same thing. You TIDY UP for yourself, for your own peace of mind. You CLEAN for company.)
But, alas, not everyone feels this way about cleaning. In her book, Sacred Space, (Ballantine, 1996) Denise Linn states that cleaning the house should be a “spiritual” experience. (Very few people get spiritual just for company, unless you’re having the local pastor over.) She suggests that when you clean you should imagine you are ridding your home of negative energy. She proposes cleaning re-establishes harmony in the home. I think it’s a crock, like maybe she’s working for Johnson Wax, but it’s five o’clock, so I try a few suggestions given in her book.
After giving the corner under the air conditioner a good cleaning, and assuring myself no one is around to hear, I clap loudly to break up any “stagnation” that may be lurking. After vacuuming, I throw salt around the room and put little piles of it in the corners (which seems to me to be a cross purposes with the vacuuming) in order to purify and bring grounding elements into my home. I “bless” a bowl of spring water, (which I think is way out of my realm of my power, but I do it anyway) and sprinkle it around the room. Finally, I open the window and with the most awkward of hand gestures, I “invite” the air in. I “ask” the air, (and I’m feeling a bit weird about this) to circulate through my home to cleanse it and bring new energies.
It’s five to six and the house is clean, blessed and free of any demonic dust. I am now ready to clean a loony bin near you.
Actually, I’m grateful to by brother for inviting himself over, for now the house looks and smells wonderful. I open a bottle of wine, put out a few peanuts and tuck a twenty in my back pocket for the poor girl’s cab fare.
Oh! There’s the door bell. Gotta untie the kids.

-30-