The other night a friend somewhat unexpectedly dropped by late at night. As I answered the door, my wife and I kicked some shoes out of the way, threw some jackets into a closet, and closed the door to hide the mess.“Just cleaning up a little,” my wife told my friend.“It doesn’t have to be clean. I’m not royalty,” my friend replied.As far as I know I’ve never been in the presence of royalty. Assuming, of course, that a little girl in an Elsa dress doesn’t count as royalty. However, every time we’re having visitors to our house, we clean as if a drill sergeant is going to inspect our living quarters prior to the queen’s arrival.When I was a kid I always knew we were expecting visitors when my dad began to clean. My mom did the cleaning most of the time, so it wasn’t unusual to see her clean, but if my dad started cleaning something was up.I suspect this effort to put one’s cleanest foot forward happens in every household in America, no matter the income bracket.Yet I’m left with the same question I’ve had since I was a kid: why?We all have junk (stuff if you prefer), and most of us have too much of it. So why the heck should I care if you see my eyeglass case on the bathroom counter, or those past issues of Rolling Stone I’ve been meaning to get to, but that instead remain stacked haphazardly on an end table? And God forbid you see that we Bakers don’t place our shoes neatly by the front door, but rather kick them off and let them lie where they may.But if I know you’re coming to my house, then I’m going to clean before you get there.Only recently did I discover the reason why.It’s because I’ve been to your house, and it’s always so clean. No piles of junk. No laundry folded days ago, but still waiting to be put away. Holy crap, you even have a towel on the towel bar in the bathroom. A clean one!I’ve seen how you live, so I don’t want you to know that sometimes I end up with five days of clothes I wore to work piled up in the middle of by bedroom floor for no other reason than it’s easier to walk over or around them than to actually bend over and pick them up.(Although I should point out that you’re not likely to see the inside of my bedroom anyway. We have doors there, too.)But now I’ve come full circle. Everyone wants a clean house when company arrives. No one wants to be the guy with the dirty house.
However, I’m on to you. For a little while I was impressed at how clean your house is. “Boy, those people must be very tidy by nature. And so responsible, always cleaning up after themselves, and dusting, and the like.”Is it because you don’t have kids? Or because they’re grown and they moved out? Or because you have a cleaning lady? Or because your wife doesn’t work? Or did you just purge everything you own, so all that’s left is furniture and some trendy kitchen doodad that doesn’t fit in a cabinet so it has to stay on your counter? And how the hell does your house always smell like Febreze, lilacs and cool mountain rain?The jig is up!You’re not more organized than me. You’re not constantly vacuuming, and doing dishes, and buying storage totes from Target.You lucked out. You just happen to have a considerate friend—me—who warns you before I come over. I don’t stop by unannounced, which means you have time to sweep the floor, and alphabetize your DVD collection, and check the corners of that guest bathroom you don’t use to make sure there are no cobwebs.So you should be thanking me, don’t you think?Either way, you can count on more unannounced visits from yours truly. And when I show up, I’ll see the truth.The whole undusted, cluttered, dirty truth.PREVIOUS POST: The Truth About The A-Team Van Changed my LifeIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: When to Eat Food That Fell on the Floor+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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