Keeping It Clean

I used to like having my house clean when people came over. They’d compliment me on how wonderful everything looked, “even your bathroom faucets sparkle.”

That’s all in the past now. I can no longer devote my life to a clean house, especially for imaginary people who “might drop in.” When the kids were little, and there were stay home moms in the neighborhood, you never knew when the doorbell might ring. I was genuinely embarrassed when stuff covered the floor like fluff from a cottonwood tree. If I got wind someone was going to drop in, I ran around grabbing handfuls of toys, shoes, socks, underwear, can openers, wine bottles, bon bons, and tacky novels and slung them in a back closet.

I realized tonight how far I’ve come since those days because my daughter came home from swim team practice and nonchalantly said, “Maddie’s coming over.” I went in panic mode for a couple of seconds, protesting “At 9:45 on a school night?” “No school tomorrow, mom, it’s Veteran’s Day.” “Crapola!”

I said this into the phone to my favorite aunt in Tennessee, who was telling me a pretty good story about my uncle’s booze scandal. He buys all the books and manages the supplies warehouse for the county school system in my hometown. He’s always been a pillar of the community as well.

My uncle received a couple of bottles of booze as presents (people seem to give women candy and men booze – maybe we should turn that around). He left them in his office, locked up, unopened, in their original gift bags, and planned to donate them as a door prize for an organization he belongs to, thus re-gifting them like any red blooded East Tennessee school official who’s worth his salt would do.

Unfortunately, while he was on vacation, someone broke into the office and stole the booze and other odds and ends. They caught the guy and found the booze, as well as several other stolen items that were not taken from his office including, gasp, pornography. The local paper, in its infinite wisdom, decided to only mention the office robbery, and, interestingly enough, also decided to talk about only two of the stolen items, (guess which two), thus linking my uncle to the booze and porn. Who can blame them? This is such juicy stuff for a small town, and since there wasn’t a cat stuck in a tree or other breaking news story, my uncle’s robbery got front page billing.

It caused a scandal that spread to all corners of the countryside, about three miles from the epicenter of town. My poor uncle, who is literally the nicest guy in the world – in any contest pitting him against all the other nicest guys in the world, he would take the blue ribbon every time – was placed on unpaid leave for a week as punishment for having the booze on school property.

I just consulted the all-knowing Google and found the articles, which pretty much go from pointing a Bible-thumping finger at my uncle in the first one, to later admitting, without apologies, that there was no evidence that the porn came from his office. I read the readers’ comments and liked this one: “Warehouse managers are smarter than school administrators. The warehouse manager did not stand up and say, ‘Yeah, that's my porn, I brought it in to watch during slow periods and I realize it was a lapse of judgment.’ That is what a school administrator would have said.” After reading that, I’m just thankful my uncle isn’t a school administrator, because those guys must be really stupid if they would admit to clandestine meetings with Palmela Handerson during work hours.

Needless to say, I didn’t get my house cleaned up, but I fed Maddie cheese quesadillas and black olives, so she’s cool with the mess. I’ll keep you posted if I talk to my aunt again. So much excitement in one night!