I’ve been told by people that I am very lucky because I can do whatever I want. Barring financial problems, serious diseases and unwanted dependents, it’s true. But, everything has a price and there is no such thing as absolute freedom. Aside from taxes and death, dust is also a permanent fixture in our lives.
As a devout practitioner of the art of Sloth, I abhor doing house work. I abhor doing any work, period. I used to clean my room once every three months, at most, and I had a very strong ability to ignore the layers of dust on my things and the dark and thick cobwebs gathering at the corners of my ceiling. It was only when my sense of propriety kicked in and out of extreme boredom that I would clean my room.
It was always a psychological battle. Every wipe I made with the wet rag across the jalousie window was an act of will. My wiping motions were accompanied by the chorus of my three inner voices “Why do we do thisss…Preciousss…? Nasssty little dustiesss…They dirty usss… Preciousss…Not nice…Nasssty filthy dustiesss…They dirty our skinsss…Precious…” What my mom could thoroughly do in thirty minutes took me three hours. Most of my cleaning time was spent sitting in front of the electric fan and singing along with the radio.
My excuse for living in a dustbin was that I was a student. I had so much material to read that I didn’t have time for trivial things, like cleaning. After all, Denial is one of my greatest skills.
Now that I am living the pseudo-independent and the bachelor life, I have to be a grown-up. I’ve just moved into a ‘pad’ and I have to take care of everything – the bills and the maintenance. The living-on-your-own thing may sound exciting and glamorous, but it really is not. There is no glamour in housekeeping.
I have been transformed into an obsessive floor-sweeper and tile-scrubber. Vanity and self-respect are the two very powerful forces that cause me to bend over my linoleum-covered floor and vigorously wipe away the dirt and dust particles. Ever since I started living in my ’pad’, my friends have been making plans on hanging out at my place. My recent acquisition of a TV has made them very excited and there is now a call for me to buy a DVD player. When I do get the much coveted and talked about DVD player, I should start expecting people to pop up at my front door anytime of the day or night, at their convenience. I don’t want them to think of me as a slob. Note that my actions are the result of my apprehension of what other people would think.
Housekeeping is hard work and it’s my only form of weekly exercise. To protect my hands from the harsh chemicals and the splinters from my wooden shelves, I bought a bright yellow pair of rubber gloves from Handyman for less than fifty pesos. I also have a spray bottle with which I squirt diluted bleach at the tiles on my bathroom walls. I also have a toilet bowl brush with a thin metal handle. Aligned on top of my bathroom cabinet is my housekeeping arsenal, which consists of a plastic container filled with cleaning detergent, a bottle of muriatic acid, a bottle of blue hydrochloric acid and two small bottles of bleach with different scents. With these at my disposal, I think I make a decent housekeeper.
I’ve been living in my ‘pad’ for almost two months and I have discovered that housekeeping can be therapeutic and fulfilling (I’m watching Oprah at the time of this writing). Sometimes, on weekends when I have nothing to do, I fend off boredom by putting on my rubber gloves and doing impressions of Dexter’s Mom in Dexter’s Laboratory. When I’m done sweeping, scrubbing and wiping, I’d go to the mall feeling productive and relaxed. On days that I’m in a dark and gloomy mood, watching the grime go down the drain makes me feel a little better.
My cleaning routine is one the few things that are constant and consistent in my life right now. Scrubbing away at the moss growing between my white bathroom tiles, gives me a sense that my life has purpose and meaning.
As a devout practitioner of the art of Sloth, I abhor doing house work. I abhor doing any work, period. I used to clean my room once every three months, at most, and I had a very strong ability to ignore the layers of dust on my things and the dark and thick cobwebs gathering at the corners of my ceiling. It was only when my sense of propriety kicked in and out of extreme boredom that I would clean my room.
It was always a psychological battle. Every wipe I made with the wet rag across the jalousie window was an act of will. My wiping motions were accompanied by the chorus of my three inner voices “Why do we do thisss…Preciousss…? Nasssty little dustiesss…They dirty usss… Preciousss…Not nice…Nasssty filthy dustiesss…They dirty our skinsss…Precious…” What my mom could thoroughly do in thirty minutes took me three hours. Most of my cleaning time was spent sitting in front of the electric fan and singing along with the radio.
My excuse for living in a dustbin was that I was a student. I had so much material to read that I didn’t have time for trivial things, like cleaning. After all, Denial is one of my greatest skills.
Now that I am living the pseudo-independent and the bachelor life, I have to be a grown-up. I’ve just moved into a ‘pad’ and I have to take care of everything – the bills and the maintenance. The living-on-your-own thing may sound exciting and glamorous, but it really is not. There is no glamour in housekeeping.
I have been transformed into an obsessive floor-sweeper and tile-scrubber. Vanity and self-respect are the two very powerful forces that cause me to bend over my linoleum-covered floor and vigorously wipe away the dirt and dust particles. Ever since I started living in my ’pad’, my friends have been making plans on hanging out at my place. My recent acquisition of a TV has made them very excited and there is now a call for me to buy a DVD player. When I do get the much coveted and talked about DVD player, I should start expecting people to pop up at my front door anytime of the day or night, at their convenience. I don’t want them to think of me as a slob. Note that my actions are the result of my apprehension of what other people would think.
Housekeeping is hard work and it’s my only form of weekly exercise. To protect my hands from the harsh chemicals and the splinters from my wooden shelves, I bought a bright yellow pair of rubber gloves from Handyman for less than fifty pesos. I also have a spray bottle with which I squirt diluted bleach at the tiles on my bathroom walls. I also have a toilet bowl brush with a thin metal handle. Aligned on top of my bathroom cabinet is my housekeeping arsenal, which consists of a plastic container filled with cleaning detergent, a bottle of muriatic acid, a bottle of blue hydrochloric acid and two small bottles of bleach with different scents. With these at my disposal, I think I make a decent housekeeper.
I’ve been living in my ‘pad’ for almost two months and I have discovered that housekeeping can be therapeutic and fulfilling (I’m watching Oprah at the time of this writing). Sometimes, on weekends when I have nothing to do, I fend off boredom by putting on my rubber gloves and doing impressions of Dexter’s Mom in Dexter’s Laboratory. When I’m done sweeping, scrubbing and wiping, I’d go to the mall feeling productive and relaxed. On days that I’m in a dark and gloomy mood, watching the grime go down the drain makes me feel a little better.
My cleaning routine is one the few things that are constant and consistent in my life right now. Scrubbing away at the moss growing between my white bathroom tiles, gives me a sense that my life has purpose and meaning.
No comments:
Post a Comment