If you've ever been to my house and actually inspected it, you would know I'm not the cleanest or most organized person. I'm a surface cleaner, things look nice enough, my house generally does not smell funky, and we have (as of yet) never gotten some weird sickness from my house, but there's lots of little jobs that could be done to make it cleaner. So while I enjoy a clean house as much as the next person, I don't enjoy the process of it, and for this I blame my parents. Any of you that have ever been to my parents house may say "but their house is clean! Patti is a super cleaner, she's good at doing all the little jobs, why do you blame them?" Well, it took some thinking and connecting but I finally found a way, cause it can't be my own fault!
When I was a kid I witnessed my parents reading...a lot. Especially my dad, he read and read and read. He still does. When he was reading you could go up and talk to him for about 10 minutes before he'd realize it. Anyway, they passed their love of reading onto me, whether they meant to or not. Therefore, reading filled up a lot of my spare time, making it virtually impossible for me to be bored. Well, what's that got to do with cleaning? Hang on.
Of course before I figured all that out, I would occasionally get bored. And when I would I'd go to my mom and tell her I was bored. Big mistake. Most of the time she'd respond with, "Well, you could clean the bathroom" or "the kitchen floor needs to be mopped" or "you can go pull the weeds in the front". Suddenly I was no longer bored! She trained me to never get bored (or at least to never tell her I was bored). Thus, unintentionally I'm sure, she trained me that cleaning is only what bored people do. And for that I say, (insert sarcasm here) "thanks a lot" .
And what do I do instead of cleaning out of boredom? I read. And for that I sincerely say
"thanks a lot!"
3 comments:
Well, now that my daughter knows how to leave things for me to READ, we can finally communicate. Like most children, she has failed to comprehend the depth of her parent's diabolical plan. We purposely trained her to be a poor housekeeper so that she would be glad to see us when we come over - since we do most of her housework.
Hahahaha!!!! Loooove it! Your parents are quite the sneaky people. :) I wish my parents came over to clean my house. :) But sadly, I am much like you Lisa. I am a HUGE surface cleaner...and every once in a while I'll find the ambition to get up and do something drastic. (Like, clean the outside of my windows, or wipe down the top of my cupboards.) But, those times are sadly and surely far and inbetween. Atleast you read when you are bored....I only do that half the time. The other half, I sit around saying...."What should I do." And never once does it cross my mind that I should clean. Although, I am sure my parents did the same thing to me. Yet, whenever I told them I was bored while growing up...I already had a list of things to do...I just didn't want to do them. And, I quickly learned to stop telling them that, because they would very easily and all too quickly add to my "list" of things to do. (Which a lot of those times included pulling weeds and sweeping the gutter. (Have you ever had more boring jobs?) Unfortunately, this is probably why I am sooooo obsessed with doing them now. Thanks to my parents sneakyness.
Did I ever tell you you are a GREAT writer? You have very good and profound insight on things. You should pick up writing in your spare time. (Even if it's just for yourself.) I'd love to read it! :)
my favorite part is that lisa thinks she had to wait so long to talk to dad b/c he was engrossed in his reading. he always dropped whatever he was doing to talk to me.
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