Housework

I'm still not feeling too well.

This line is usually delivered in a peculiar croaky little voice. Particularly when ringing work. The sort of croak that no real illness actually inflicts. I can't stand it when people do that to me. That pathetic bit of play-acting. Like a six year-old who doesn't want to go to school. "Oh come on, you pathetic fool," I want to say, "stop whinging and get out your pit, you lazy malingering bastard."

Of course, I do croak to others. You know, just so they know I'm really sick and not acting or anything, I act just that extra bit sick so they'll know, that I am sick. Honestly. Sick.

I rang work today.

Which just leaves me here, in the house with the baby.
To relax...
Stretch out...
Play...
Do a spot of housework.
Bugger!

Our place, you have to understand, is totally and utterly scrubbed clean. Clinical almost. This is not as a result of my efforts. If I was left to my own devices I would probably keep the house to about the same standards of hygiene that are more commonly found in Shane McGowan's pockets.

My girlfriend, you see, is a wee bit obsessive about cleanliness. I don't quite know the science involved, but even though she cannot read or drive without the use of glasses, she can identify a speck of dust from five metres away with a naked eyeball. This creates all kinds of stresses for me, such as having to move, worry, move a bit more and then create new excuses.

On the days when I totally run myself ragged trying to meet the standard, I find she comes home, smiles wanly and then does it all again. This of course does wonders for morale.

I can almost hear legions of women tutting, shaking their heads, saying "If only he did it properly in the first place... blah... blah... blah..." Well, I say, bloody well come round here and give us a hand. It would take legions of you to get it up to scratch. Every day is a spring-clean in our house and every weekend, a full scale renovation.

The thing is. I love it! Okay, there's that thing of never sitting down until 10pm but the living in a clean, organised home bit is wonderful.

And there is that other thing of never being able to find any of my stuff. Its all been tidied away, see.

Every time I ask "Honey where is my passport/credit card/keys/shoe etc." I am greeted by that face. It says "Go on, ask me if you dare." I never get a straight answer anyway. I have lived with several women in my life and every bloody one of them has resented any attempt by me to lay my hands on my stuff. Answers usually range from "Where you left it." (Mostly untrue. I leave tend to things in the middle of the floor and over the years all the things have been moved) to "Use your eyes." (Silly me, I was trying to locate my keys by sonar). Eventually there is a fair bit of recrimination and blame, from me directed to my girlfriend, followed by protracted apologies when I remember that I did, in fact, bury my keys in the garden under six tonnes of quicklime "for safe keeping".

The final drag about the tidy house thing is that it seems to mess itself up spontaneously when my girlfriend is out. Its like she posses some magical force that sticks things where they belong. As soon as she closes the door behind her everything starts to slide. Sometimes I feel like the Mickey Mouse Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia. I've spent the last half hour knocking todays entry together and during that time a dozen dishes have actually used themselves, I'm sure of it!

How else could one man and one baby created all this mess?

Is that the time?

She'll be home in an hour. Time to start cleaning.

Maybe today it will be good enough.

But then again, (croaky voice) I'm not well, you know.