Perhaps I misspoke a couple days ago saying cleaning the house is a meaningless task. Sometimes it seems to be a waste of time for as much joy as I get out of it. Don’t get me wrong, I by nature veer closer to being a clean freak even more so coming from a family of hoarders.

I don’t like how clutter and messes make me feel. But I don’t necessarily like all the time I need to invest to keep the house as clean as I like.

I spent the last couple of days helping Angel clean her new house. When we sold our house a couple years back, we had the whole house repainted and the carpets professionally scrubbed. We updated the light fixtures. In today’s market, it is not necessary to even clean the house or update it in any way before trying to sell it. They bid over the asking price and waived the appraisal and inspection. All this because they were getting sick of people asking if they were going to continue to live separately with their parents after they got married. In all honesty, it’s what they had to do if they wanted a chance to get a house.

So the other night, I spent a couple hours cleaning the bathrooms at their house. It was disgusting. All I can say is that the lady must have had a long hair black dog she showered with. Everything was dingy and dirty. The sinks still had toothpaste in them. In fact, I was disheartened and overwhelmed when I first saw the house at how dirty it was and how much needed to be done before moving in.

It was then I realized cleaning is not a meaningless task. (I also realized I couldn’t clean other peoples homes for a living). Because if you don’t clean up after yourself, eventually someone else is going to have to do it or you have to do it and it will be horrible.

I also thought about my parent’s house. Some day we will have one hell of a time cleaning the place out. If they collectively spent one hour a week cleaning since they got married, I wouldn’t feel this overwhelming urge to light a match and walk away from it when they are gone.

At times it may feel like a waste of time to clean, but it will really help save time in the long run. It’s easier to maintain a fairly clean house than to dig yourself out later.

Too bad the house doesn’t clean itself. I thought we were supposed to have robots that do everything for us by now. The future I thought we would have as a kid is at times rather disappointing. Ahhhh, oh well. Time to go paint.