DUST

          Do you hate to dust? I absolutely hate to dust and you’d know that if you came to visit, if you could come to visit. If you did and looked around at all the crap, I mean important to me stuff, that sits around on every single available surface, you would think the highlight of my life would be dusting all those wonderful glass pieces so they’d sparkle and shine. You would think wrong.

          I’m not sure I understand how all this came about or if it’s just a factor of getting older. I remember my mom’s house was always pretty decent, but there were always a couple of areas as she aged that she simply didn’t clean or dust very often. They weren’t important areas like the kitchen counters or dining table, but I noticed and wondered at the time why she didn’t pay more attention.

          Well, now I think I know…I’m older and simply don’t care about the dust. It always comes back no matter what you find to dust with that’s supposed to make it so easy. I watch those Swiffer commercials and want to beat those “I’m so happy I dusted people.” about the head and shoulders with the other end of the Swiffer stick.

          I can think clear back to my first apartment, our first house and now this house and how I used to clean up a storm. You could, quite possibly, have eaten off my floors without getting some kind of disease or even dog hair in your food. You could gaze out my sparkling windows rain or shine and not have your view blocked by dirt. And, dust, oh my word, I dusted every single Saturday, every single thing in the house.

          Now, it’s just me, myself and I, plus the two doggies that have the run of this house (well the doggies don’t, I keep them out of the bathroom and bedrooms). You would think my cleaning habits from decades ago would kick in and I’d have a sparkling house from floor to ceiling. Well, I don’t.

Back when I could entertain, having family or friends over was a great excuse to drag out the vacuum, follow that with dusting and cleaning the floors. In the time since I’ve been sheltering in place, I’ve done very little major cleaning. My windows could use a good wash inside and outside. I could hire the man down the street who’s in that business. I could even save up and have the Molly Maids return for a thorough cleaning of every single room.

But, you know what? I simply don’t care if everything sparkles and shines. I do keep the big chunks picked up. I do clean the bathroom and kitchen regularly. I do vacuum every couple of weeks and clean the floors if the doggies have tracked mud all over. But, dusting, well it’s on my list and I’m sure that one day I’ll wake up energized and excited to drag out the dust cloths or Swiffer stuff to whisk the dust away until the next time everything looks extremely dull and well, dusty.