The Dust Bunny Cometh

Actually, it's my relatives who are descending on me next weekend.

My theory of house keeping has always been that if I didn't make the mess, I'm not the most qualified person to clean it up. Obviously, the person I live with doesn't feel the same way.

Once upon a time, I worked two jobs so that I could have a housekeeper once a week. When I started writing again, I gave up the weekend job and the housekeeper. We didn't fool ourselves into believing either one of us would take up the slack. The bathroom and kitchen were the focus of any real cleaning energy. Everything else got sporadic attention.

But now, as I said, the relatives are descending upon us. A glance around the hovel makes it clear we've been shirking our housekeeping. If I had any guts, I'd leave it as is and just ignore the horrified looks from my father who used to wake me at 7AM every Saturday morning with my marching orders for the day. Deep down, I'd be thrilled if he turned on his heel and refused to stay another second. But I'm gritting my teeth and playing nice, so by the time the relatives come over, the place will warrant a Sanitized For Your Protection sash across the doorway.
Aside from the teetering stack of smut next to my computer, there's also an aggressive dust bunny clinging to the underside of our fridge. Don't even get me started on the confused jumble that is our combined shoe collection. At about the fourth hour of cleaning today, we joked about renting an apartment down the street and pretending we'd moved. Six hours into a cleaning frenzy that's made the hovel actually look worse than it did before, the SO is taking a long deserved break. He's wistfully looking through the apartment ads. With only four days to go to R-Day though, I think the wiser choice would be to throw a circus tent over the hovel, claim we're being fumigated for termites, and take a suite at the marina Hilton. After all - they have a bar downstairs. And daily maid service.