Elephant in the Room

I have always admired friends and friends of my parents who have kept spotless homes. Often they accomplish this feat without hiring much outside help, probably because perfectionists tend to do things for themselves. No one else can be trusted to do the cleaning exactly right. I give due credit to these people and wish I could be more like them. But I do want to point out that it takes a great deal of effort just to maintain a filthy house. So I think something worse than filthy is on the spectrum. I could find out by suspending all efforts at maintaining my home. But I am afraid to find out what that looks like. My wife is already going to be really upset when she reads this and I am also afraid to see what that looks like. So I should stipulate that none of the fault belongs to said spouse who has for half a century valiantly tried to clean up after me and hide my deficiencies from the public. My own Mother once called me slovenly which was strong language indeed coming from her. But I cannot take all the blame. Grandchildren and all our pets contribute to the disarray. We house an unusual mix of exotic animals, including spiders, spider food, ants, moths, mold, dust bunnies and elephants. The elephants seem to plunder the house only when our fifteen year old grandson is home alone.

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