Aerobic House Cleaning

Over the years, Marianne and I have learned the best way to get the house cleaned up in a hurry is to invite friends over for dinner. The key is to have a tight, but firm deadline. It also helps if the friends are casual and of more recent acquaintance. We need to know enough about them to be intrigued, but not so much that we're aware of skeletons in the closet. This reinforces our efforts to make a good impression.

In order for house cleaning to qualify as "aerobic," it has to be done rapidly with a deadline looming. It helps if the person initiating the cleaning effort has internalized a feeling of righteous indignation regarding some real or perceived personal affront. My wife does this better than anyone I know; but, I can work up to it with a little gestation time.

On the list of "to do" items, one of the first priorities is removing those unsightly cobwebs high up on the walls next to the ceiling. We have the cleaning implement with the long handle and nylon spikes that snag them as it is rotated. Often, the last cobweb doesn't reveal itself until guests have arrived and we're sitting down in the living room.

Another "to do" item is removing everyones' stuff from common spaces and returning it to appropriate bedrooms. Stuff often includes coats and sweatshirts cast off by their owners as they enter the house upon returning from another conquest. Orphaned shoes and socks are among stuff strewn about the floor. There are also textbooks with intriguing titles, such as Principles of Chemistry or History Alive lying forgotten by their owners on the dining room table. Particular attention is required to separate active homework assignments - those in progress and yet to be turned in - from those already graded and deemed no longer useful disregarding their utility in studying for upcoming tests.

A complicating factor in putting away stuff is making an accurate guess as to who is the rightful owner. Before Rowchik headed off to college, she and Pretty in Pink by virtue of being teenaged girls, shared many similar wardrobe items. Shirts and jeans were easily confused items and sometimes placed in the wrong bedroom resulting in grumbling and consternation. Stuff of uncertain origin tends to gravitate toward Evster's bedroom where it occasionally submerges for spans exceeding six months. Typically, the owner is blissfully ignorant of it's absence, but proclaims her dire need when the item is later excavated during Evster's infrequent room cleanings.

One pitfall of aerobic house cleaning, especially if it continues until the guests arrive (knock loudly; so, I can hear you while I'm running the vacuum cleaner), is maintaining sufficient energy reserves to juggle dinner preparation with ongoing conversation. When we are busy in the kitchen, inevitably, guests congregate there as well and offer assistance, when it appears we in over our heads. As we often are.

For Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago, we invited not only my octogenarian father and step-mother, but also a running buddy and his wife both in their mid-seventies. After we had exchanged pleasantries and talked for a few minutes in the dining room, Marianne and I returned to the kitchen to monitor the turkey roasting in the oven while I diced vegetables for a green salad and she whipped Yukon Golds to a creamy consistency. Thirty minutes later, we realized our guests had seated themselves around the dining room table while chatting amiably, sipping wine, and munching hors d'oeuvres. Chances of someone leaving the conversation and slipping away to offer assistance in the kitchen were remote.

Clearly, we were going to need plenty of stamina to get dinner on the table and, afterward, follow through with dessert and coffee plus extended kitchen clean up after their departure. Hardened by similar miscalculations during the intervening years, we have learned to balance the ratio of seniors to spry forty- or fifty-somethings to increase our odds of survival.