Different agendas
Loose Ends Susan Nienow

Any day now I need to start on my spring cleaning. It's September? So I'm running a little late. When I asked my other half to help, he said, "Define spring cleaning."

He's so - neat. When I close my eyes and think "spring cleaning," I see sparkle. The glass gleams, the wood floors shine and the spiders are homeless. He sees piles with straight lines and even corners. He thinks it means I am going to clean out my laundry/craft/sewing storage room, clean off my desk and arrange my closet so when I pull out a skirt, four other things don't fall on the floor.

My plan is to restack my mending and put it in a bin, go for broke on a "washable" suede shirt and actually wash it, and make a decision on the 23 Lean Cuisine trays that I have saved for paint trays. My other half just informed me he found another stack of 17 trays. Wonder what they would go for on eBay?

New to the inventory is a lawn and leaf bag full of towels and blankets dating back to the early '90s. When the kids moved, they decided they didn't have room for old beach towels and the bath towels they ruined in college. My other half took some out to the garage to use when we move furniture.

Speaking of garages, spring cleaning for the garage is happening as soon as it is cooler. Don't tell him, though.

Next to the lawn and leaf bag there are two grocery bags of office supplies that my overseas daughter was going to get rid of before she left. I just can't let things go to waste so I put the bags in my laundry room. Now I have to figure out what to do with two boxes of staples but no stapler, four packages of Christmas computer paper, a mini stapler, but no mini staples, and a huge paper clip with a calculator on it.

I rearranged the bags so they wouldn't fall over, and stuck them in the corner after I blew the dust bunnies away. The towels I dumped in the washing machine, and turned it on. At least that bought me some time before I had to find a place to stash them.

It's clear to me that we have different agendas. He wants my rooms, closets and desktop neat. I want floors, windows and the surfaces dust and sticky stuff free. I put him in charge of windows, and handed him the blue stuff in a spray bottle, a roll of paper towels and said, "Go for it."

While he was busy, I stashed my desktop piles under my desk, closed the door to the laundry room and declared my office "clean." As I walked through the great room he was just finishing the windows. Streaks. He should have said, "I don't do windows."

Now I was going to have to say, "You don't do windows."