Today I've been busy. My mum goes into surgery tomorrow, and so we've been shopping and cleaning and performing every general household task possible today, so she won't worry when she's recovering. We spent almost two hundred dollars on groceries (it needed to be done anyhow, right?) and filled prescriptions, came home and as she sat downstairs in her chair and relaxed, I put away our things and was suddenly struck with that bizarre desire to clean. Any girl here will know what I'm talking about, and perhaps a few of the men as well.
Where things looking good on the surface is no longer good enough! Where cupboards must be straightened and expired things thrown away! Where even if things will not look neat, like bags of chips or cereal, they must be made to look as nice as possible! This is the land of horror, the land of Clean, the land that sucks you in and spits you back out in dirty pieces.
I had finished organising the fridge and the cupboards, and had only just finished loading the dishwasher and wiping down the countertop, when my father came upstairs and nonchalantly placed a used cereal bowl and spoon in the sink. I gave him the housewifely evil eye-- I have to start developing it sometime-- and flatly told him to put it in the dishwasher.
"Chels, I can't," he said irritably. "I have to go pack this suitcase for your mom... why don't you try doing something around here?"
See, he's lucky he winked, or I would have had that rag twisted up and I would have been all over him like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat before he could say another word.
This is a long story merely to tell you that I'm actually kind of tired.