Most of the time, our apartment is cozily cluttered with magazines, mail, throw pillows, a random assortment of blankets, and lately, piles of Christmas cookies in cute little bags and tins. I do, however, sometimes experience a slight case of OCD and feel the need to clean. This does not happen often, but when it does, I find it hard to concentrate on anything important (like TiVo) if, I don't know, there's a random pair of shoes (usually mine) lying all haphazardly at the foot of the stairs. However, this OCD coupled with my everyday (undiagnosed) ADD cause me to clean in the most roundabout fashion imaginable.
FOR INSTANCE, I begin the cleaning process by starting a load of laundry. While in the laundry room, I find the Febreze, which makes me want to spray it on every surface until the apartment smells like a sweet, heavenly garden. Before I can spray Febreze, though, I realize I need to vacuum, but before I vacuum I have to dust. While looking for the dusting cloths, I find toilet cleaner and remember that it's been [insert embarrassing amount of time here] since I've cleaned my bathroom. I put toilet bowl cleaner in the toilet and scrub the sink and shower. I will now forget I have put toilet bowl cleaner in the toilet bowl until the next time I have to pee, open the lid, and wonder why the toilet water is bright blue. Around this time, I realize I need to clean the litter box, which means I have to take a trip to the dumpster, which means I will try to gather up every piece of garbage in our apartment because I try to make trips to the dumpster as infrequent as possible. After the dumpster, I wash my hands in the kitchen and realize the dishwasher needs unloaded. Undoubtedly, the dishwasher has failed to actually CLEAN the dishes, but instead of washing them by hand I run them through another cycle. By now, I remember that I need to set up coffee and make my lunch for the next day. While putting things back in the refrigerator, I notice the Brita pitcher needs refilled so I stick that in the sink, run some water in it, and walk away. Now, I can dust and vacuum but when I reach my room I notice that, well, it's a fucking mess so I stack all the messy piles of paper and mail into neater piles of paper and mail, put the clean laundry away that has been sitting folded and pretty in the laundry basket for a week, and make my bed. Then I think "wow, I haven't posted anything in my blog for a while," sit down, and lose an hour to the Internets*. Now I have to pee but when I get to the bathroom I find the toilet still full of toilet bowl cleaner so I have to clean it. I then finish vacuuming and spray the shit out of our apartment with Febreze. When I go to put the Febreze back in the laundry room, I realize the laundry I put in the washer has been done for an hour and a half and is now ready to be put in the dryer. When I open the dryer, I find a load of laundry I'd put in and forgotten about two days before, fold it, and put it in the laundry basket on my bedroom floor that will be horribly neglected until my next bout of OCD. The End. It's kind of like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but really more like If You Wave Something Shiny at Jennie**.
Oh, and I'll also forget about the Brita pitcher in the sink for at least an hour.
*by the way, this is the stage I am at now
**as far as I know, this title is unpublished
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