“I hate the word housewife; I don’t like the word homemaker either. I want to be called Domestic Goddess.”
-Roseanne
I was up past midnight cleaning my flat for our semesterly cleaning check, even though out of sheer laziness our complex management simply decided to forgo it last Fall. Slowly over the years, as I’ve grown up and moved into a place relatively my own, I have become convinced of a fundamental war between good and evil: order and chaos locked in eternal combat, and their battleground is housekeeping. I’m pretty sure the Apocalypse will happen in my apartment.
There are divine entities at work too, I’m positive. There is a malicious God of the Dryer who demands the sacrifice of socks to appease his hunger. These hapless cotton victims vanish into an alternate dimension never to be seen again, that’s the only explanation I can satisfactorily come to. I bought two dozen a couple months ago, I’m down to nine (not pairs, total). Also, my flat in particular is plagued by a Dust Demon that periodically covers all it sees with a tangible layer, courtesy of a filthy vent (thanks, management, for helping us out with that). Another entity is our resident Garbage Disposal Goddess who is by turns benevolent and heartless, currently the latter. Thankfully for us all the Second Coming of the Vacuum redeemed us all (three months after it died, a brighter shiny new version arose to take its place).
I’m sorry to say my flatmates aren’t always the cleanest (neither am I, but at least I try!) and occasionally they call Domestic Divine Wrath down upon us. The most recent and notable example is my flatmates leaving two plastic jugs of milk (I’ll call one Sodom and the other Gomorrah) out on the counter for at least 5 days. I woke up one morning, late as usual, and was scampering about to get to work on time when upon entering the kitchen, I found the jugs had exploded all over my counter. Something resembling the unholy love child of cottage cheese and sour cream had erupted everywhere and I was late to work because I had to clean it up or asphyxiate. I suppose that makes me a great crusader at some level but at the time all I was was pissed and, I feel, righteously angry.
This little incident broke the camel’s back for me. When J. came over that night I snapped, very uncharacteristically, “I’ve decided we should get married. Next week.”
Kudos to him, he understood perfectly. He just sighed and asked, “What happened?”
I will say one argument in favor of matrimony and child bearing would be the eventual slave labor offspring provide doing chores. Maybe that’s the reason my mother had four of us.
Anyway, after several hours scrubbing, chemicals, vacuuming, and many socks sacraficed, my flat looks pretty good. The forces of Good have prevailed, for a week at least.
Small Dog Syndrome 