My apologies for my absence here but I have been busy cleaning my new house. The American Gothic House hasn’t been lived in for two years and given that the place doesn’t require a cleaning deposit it appears the last tenant took advantage of this little loophole. She packed up her belongings but didn’t scrub the black mildew out of the bathtub, didn’t wipe out the spill of some thick orange greasy slime pooled under the crisper drawers in the refrigerator, didn’t clean the oily splatter of her cooking off the side of the stove, didn’t even bother to pull the nails out of the walls where her pictures hung. It would be one thing to have two years of dust (and mouse droppings) to clean, but two years of someone else’s grime with dust (and mouse droppings) collecting on top of it? Let me just say, I’ve been scrubbing so hard for so many consecutive days I lie in bed at night with my forearms bulging as big as Popeye’s throbbing with fatigue.
I don’t mean to rag on this former tenant. But my rant is this: HYGIENE, people. Practice good hygiene! Who wants to eat pie made in a dirty kitchen?
I have moved too many times in my life and therefore cleaned up after far too many not-so-hygienic tenants, which is probably what contributes to my frustration here, but come on. I beg you. Open your eyes and see the dirt. Pay attention to the cooking splatters and use a rag to clean them up. Right away. And don’t let your crisper drawers in the refrigerator become a collection bin for the maple syrup, meat, and juice spills from above. Pull them all the way out, give them a good rinse, and wipe underneath them while you’re at it. Not just when you move out but do it regularly. Your house will smell better, feel better. You will feel better. And when you’re done, make some pie. It will taste so much better — and so much healthier — when you make it in a clean kitchen.
My furniture and all of my belongings arrive from Portland, Oregon tomorrow. After I unpack everything I will christen my house by baking a pie in my immaculate, sanitized kitchen. And then I will find my hammer and remove all those leftover nails.
Thank you for listening. I feel better now. Though my arms are still tired.