Taking out the trash

There are two styles of housekeeping in this world. There are those who tidy things up as they go along: every possession has it’s own allocated place, and dusting and polishing is done little and often in order to maintain an atmosphere of consistent cleanliness. Then there is the other style, where the house is allowed to slip slowly into a cesspit of mess and chaos until somebody throws their hands up in the air and screams “I can’t live like this any longer!” There is then an eight hour cleaning marathon, during which all the crap that’s been littering the floor gets stuffed behind the couch, on top of the bookcase, and in random cupboards until eventually the carpet is once more visible.

In the Hughes household we subscribe firmly to the second methodology. Not for us is the freaky OCD behaviour of the constant cleaner. Oh sure, it would be less effort and provide us with a more pleasant living environment. But sometimes you just have to take a stand for what you believe in. And I believe in procrastination.

Anyway, Kerry usually cracks first.

Whenever we do have a cleaning session we are always careful make sure that we keep the resulting bin bags* out of Amy’s sight. If we don’t we inevitably find her rooting through them with the diligence of a tabloid journalist searching for Britney’s discarded pregnancy test. Every now and then Amy will emerge from the bag with a indignant shout, highly offended that we would consider throwing away a tatty comic or a plastic robot with it’s legs missing. Her piercing accusational glare would melt steel, and we are inevitably forced to return the precious object to its previous place of safety.

A couple of months ago one of Amy’s favourite DVDs went missing after I had tidied the lounge. It looked like it had become the victim of collateral damage during the cleaning blitz and had been scooped up and thrown away. What made it worse was that the DVD had been a freebie from a local play gym, and when we down and asked we found that they longer had any to replace it with. Amy was pretty disappointed that we no longer had her Jimmer Jammers DVD (don’t ask) and I felt pangs of parental guilt for weeks afterwards.

Then, a couple of days ago, Kerry was rummaging around in one of the bookcases and stumbled across the missing DVD. Instead of throwing it away I had evidently absentmindedly stashed it there (adhering to the theory that if it’s off the floor then it’s tidy). What we once thought was lost was now restored, it was as if we had experienced a minor miracle. A little magic had been introduced to our lives and we had all come away enriched by the experience.

See. That wouldn’t have happened if we had maintained a tidy house would it.

* Ok, “trash bag” if you insist on being all American about it. Incidentally did you know that the green trash bag was recently voted the 36th greatest Canadian invention. It’s true.