My husband is cleaner than I am.
Yes, he is an Eagle Scout but his mother is also apparently some kind of housekeeping nazi. When we first married, he mopped the floor then took my car to be cleaned and one of our neighbors came over to ask if we were moving. His idea of mopping consists of moving every stick of furniture out of the room before getting the mop wet. When he’s lazy, he will mop around chair legs but as a rule, he will put the chairs in the garage. Hence my nosy neighbor’s question.
Once, he was in the shower and the Princess was sound asleep. I popped my head in the bathroom and gave him sexy eyes and offers through the shower door. I waited around in the bedroom for a while before I went back into the bathroom and found him with a bristle brush in the shower scrubbing away instead of getting busy with me. Idiot.
Despite this, he is NOT neat. Clean? Yes. Hoarder? Yes again. When we married, he actually brought ten years worth of magazines to my house. I pointed to the recycling bin and walked back inside. Another time, he received via UPS a new printer for his job. (He works for the Feds.) However, he took a new job the following week – still for the Feds but in a different division. One Y E A R later, the box was still sitting in my bedroom floor in a corner. I told him if he didn’t get that damn printer out, then I was going to sell it on ebay. Astounded that I would “steal” from the U. S. government, he told me he would find a home for the printer. In typical bureaucratic nonsense, the printer couldn’t possibly be used in the new department. And because it was “issued to” my husband, it couldn’t possibly be returned to the old department. So it moved to the garage for a while. I found it in the corner of a closet today – 3 years later – and took it to Goodwill. Oh. Yes. I. Did. Your tax money at work, people.
Me? I’m neat but not necessarily clean. No junk laying around, but the floor is filthy. “Galloping horse theory” as my Nana would say. “Can you see it from a galloping horse? No? Then it ain’t there.” Ha.
becomingcliche said:
I’m a stacker. I have places to put most things, but about 6 times a week, I come across some article that I have no clue where to stash. So I stack it away in some corner. If we were to have an earthquake, my system would be toast.
psychodynamom said:
Lil. I toss out more stuff than you can imagine. Generally I waste a little time about a year later looking for it!!
worrywarts-guide-to-weight-sex-and-marriage said:
Yet more evidence that we are somehow the same person and married to the same man . . . except I’m old, not going to Moscow, and would never ever be naked in the shower with my husband unless it was pitch black (which I wouldn’t do because that’s dangerous and firemen could end up involved) or I was in the mood to ruin three decades of him not figuring out that things look different in a vertical position. Now you are probably wondering what it is we do have in common? Galloping horse theory.
psychodynamom said:
Lol. Love the theory and it’s very true too!
katecrimmins said:
I love your Nana! My kind of woman!
psychodynamom said:
She was a genius! Be looking for an upcoming blog about her and Christmas!
notquiteold said:
My husband will not throw anything away! Ever! I’ve been saving up a blog on that, that you inspired me to dust off.
And I can’t wait to hear about Nana!
psychodynamom said:
Ooh goody! I can’t wait to read this one!
Minding My Nest said:
galloping horse…i love it!! my new mantra. 🙂 although i’d still probably be able to see my cat’s hairballs from horseback. 😉 LOL
psychodynamom said:
Probably not. Horses re pretty quick!
whatimeant2say said:
Cap’n Firepants has a hard time throwing stuff away. He comes by it honestly, though. We have been trying to clean out his parents’ house for three years. I think he’s starting to see the light.
psychodynamom said:
It’s hard if you aren’t a purger by nature. Three years? Sheesh!
Kimberly Pugliano said:
EVERY SINGLE TIME I vacuum I move every piece of furniture around in the living room. I love him.
psychodynamom said:
I am glad you don’t live nearby. We could not possibly be friends with your compulsion LOL
ifiwerebraveblog said:
Did we marry the same man? Are we the same person?
psychodynamom said:
Oh dear. I’ll ask my therapist 😉
Diane Henders said:
I love your Nana’s galloping horse theory!
My husband and I are completely incompatible. He’s a hoarder; I’m a thrower-outer. I’m a neatnik; he’s a drop-it-where-you-used-it. It took me ten years to convince him our laundry hamper could go in our walk-in closet instead of in the corner of our bedroom (where it was more “convenient”.)
But one thing we agree on: we both hate cleaning. We aren’t rich, but there’s always room in the budget for a twice-a-month cleaning lady. It was that or start planting radishes in the accumulated dust.
psychodynamom said:
Nana was a genius! I would be some serious kind of happy if I had a cleaning lady!!
gojulesgo said:
Oh man, it’s like looking in a mirror! My husband keeps boxes and little piles of crap (coins, rubber bands, receipts) EVERYWHERE – it drives me insane! If I buy him a pretty little basket to organize said crap, he fills it in two days flat and makes a new pile somewhere else. I’m like you – neat but not clean (except towels and sheets; I’m a nut about clean linens).
psychodynamom said:
The Prince has an overflowing basket on top of the fridge. Periodically I just reach in & toss a handful of his shit. He never misses it 😉
Elyse said:
If cleanliness is next to godliness, I am doomed. Hopefully, some of my blogger buddies will be in hell with me. But there will be NO fire because that would destroy all my crap and I cannot have that!
What a fun post.
psychodynamom said:
LOL. Thanks for the comment & for reading!
ifiwerebraveblog said:
I’ve nominated you for the Liebster Blog Award. If you choose to accept it, please check out the rules on my blog. I think your blog is hilarious.
psychodynamom said:
Thanks so much! I am too crazy at this moment to accept & reblog appropriately. I’ll return the “trackback” favor after the holidays though!
Kaitlin said:
Bahahaha. Found you from the ifiwerebrave blog up one review. This is AWESOME. Oh yes indeed. I love the galloping horse theory, though I’m much more on the clean but not neat front >.>
psychodynamom said:
Glad you stopped by & thanks for the feedback!
Kelly K @ Dances with Chaos said:
I’m the one with hoarding tendencies in the family.
Things have about an eight year cycle. If I haven’t used it in 8 years, I can finally say good-bye. If it isn’t sentimental.
I’m trying to get over the “adorable artwork” of my children by taking photos of it, then tossing it, or I predict a room will be overrun with it by 2013…
I wish my husband cleaned like that…
psychodynamom said:
I should keep things longer. Right now I have two coffee tables in my garage. My dad refinished one of them in the early 80s and put our pics under the final coat of urethane. It’s special but too ugly to use in my home!
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