Oh, It's A Dirty Job But Someone's Gotta Do It

And that someone’s gotta be me.

I have discovered, since Youngest Daughter left for Majorca in May, that I am actually a tidy person. This has caused me some amazement – finally, after approximately a quarter of a century as a wife and mother, I find out it wasn’t really me who was untidy, it was everyone else! (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

For years I’d resigned myself to the fact that we were all just a bunch of people with some very messy habits (most of the time I ended up taking the feck-it-if-you-can’t-beat-‘em-join-‘em option, it was easier on my blood pressure).

When I say messy habits, I don’t mean health hazard standards. Our house wouldn’t have been a contender for How Clean Is Your House – some of the houses featured on that programme made me gag. Literally. On the upside though, it made me feel positively house-proud by comparison.

No flat surface escaped having piles of crap heaped on them, whether it be the living room, kitchen, bedroom, conservatory or hallway. It was also a common sight in our house to have engine parts and various tools on the kitchen worktops.

Significant Other used to scribble phone numbers onto backs of envelopes or scraps of paper, and woe betide me if I moved them.

Every now and then, I’d go into argh-I-can’t-stand-living-in-this-shithole-any-longer mode, get the right hump and tidy up. If I was lucky, the neatness lasted a day. But then I’d get, “Bub, where’s the bit of paper with so-and-so’s number on it? You tidied up, so you MUST know where it is.”

“For feck’s sake,” would be my reply. “Try looking in that two foot high pile of paper and shit next to your chair. You might find it there.”

After going through the heap of paper and shit:

SO: Bu-ub.

Me: Hmm?

SO: It’s not there.

Me: Oh for feck’s sake.

SO: You must have thrown it away.

Me: Oh for feck’s sake.

SO: I really need that number.

Me: Oh for feck’s sake.

SO: For feck’s sake, stop saying ‘oh for feck’s sake’. You’re not being helpful.

Me: Okay. Bloody hell.

I’d then go through the papers, find the relevant envelope/bit of paper and hand it over with a final, “Oh for feck’s sake.”

Before you ask, on several occasions I tried to introduce the novelty concept of an address book.

Failed.

Children, being children, aren’t tidy creatures. As both the girls got older, they went through phases of keeping their bedrooms tidy. This tidiness did not extend to the rest of the house.

These phases didn’t last too long. I ended up taking the view that if that was how they wanted their rooms to be, if they wanted to wade through piles of shite, then so be it. I had enough shite to wade through in the rest of the house.

Since Youngest Daughter has been away, I’ve tidied and it still surprises me not to find bags, shoes, jackets, jewellery, magazines or whatever on my return to the house after I’ve been out.

I have however, not touched the pit formerly known as her bedroom.

She was going to come home early due to being very homesick, but has since changed her mind after being moved to a different resort (Magalluf a.k.a. Shagalluf – I’m not even touching that one. There are some things a mother doesn’t need or want to know), and will be staying for another three months.

Her pit is calling to me. I can ignore it no longer.

I think I need to get a decontamination suit before I go in there. If I can’t get one of those, at the very least I need those long rubber gloves like the vets wear when they need to stick their arm up a cows arse carry out an examination on a large animal.

I may be gone for some time.

Oh.

Those two foot high piles of paper?

I miss them.