Keeping Up With My Mess

It's not like I have a large place. I like to call them my "rooms" because really, it is only about 750 or 800 feet of urban dwelling space. Not really mine, because I still rent, diehard New Yorker that I am, but then really, do we own anything?

I've been thinking tonight about our little apartment, and how in so little space, so much mess can be made, so easily. Have you noticed that, when you don't put just one thing back in its proper place, that suddenly everything you possess isn't in its proper place? And seems to multiply? Take the kitchen. All you are doing is making bacon and eggs. You get the frying pan. Then the eggs, then of course, the bacon, in this case, pre-cooked to be put in the microwave for a 30 second heat up which has to be just perfectly timed for the eggs to be over medium and then of course there is the English muffin. And the spices you used to flavor up the eggs, garlic powder, butter, pepper. Neat though you are, a little of this and that is getting onto the stove top and floor. It's ready, now the plate! Everything is in the sink to be rinsed. Or the bathroom, let's face it, hair everywhere on just one combing. And toothpaste leakage. Soap scum. Still haven't done the dishes from last night. Or the living room. The cats have been sleeping all over the place during the night. Cat hair, now, too. Oh and that hairball you almost stepped on. The magazines you were reading last night still strewen about. And now, late for work, you haven't got time to clean the dishes, tidy up the bathroom, lint brush the furniture, eradicate the hair ball, and straighten out the magazines.

It'll have to wait till tonight, but wait, dinner tonight with friends. Getting back late, kick off the old shoes in the middle of the living room and dive to the couch for a rest before bed and a quick toggle between CNN and Fox. By the end of a couple of days, let alone a whole week, one or two people leave the wreakage of an apparent hurricane. And this while hardly ever being at home! They tell me that there are people whose spaces are pristine all the time. They must have people following them with dustpans and Windex. As for me and mine, we are just doing the best we can keeping up with our messes.

Well, maybe it is time to splurge for a housekeeper.