Mrs. Clean

There are several types of cleaning.
Day to day Cleaning (hahahaha)
Saturday Cleaning (optional if you get a better offer - like a root canal)
Company Cleaning (frantic and may involve hiding things)
Holiday Cleaning (you just want everything nice so the decorations can be seen)

There may be others (like I'd know...), but the most productive is Angry Cleaning.

Angry Cleaning is performed with an energy like no other cleaning. Power behind the sponge. A roll of paper towels and a full bottle of Fantastic. Not a speck of dust or one smear left on the countertops.

Angry Cleaning gets the windowsills scraped, and the lint filter rinsed. It frees the microwave of the 'whatever' splatter that's been there for two weeks, eliminates the layers of dust on the ceiling fan blades, and rewards one with the extra change collected behind chair cushions (if one is willing to reach into the dog hair and popcorn kernels to retrieve it).

The force behind Angry Cleaning is ... well, anger. Not irritation, or annoyance, or worry ... it's flat out bein' mad. The object of the anger isn't present, which is probably to their advantage. I wouldn't think a Brillo pad to the jugular could be pleasant. Every argument is perfectly presented. If you were an attorney and used the comments conjured during Angry Cleaning for your closing statement -- there would be a unanimous jury vote and the criminal would hang -- that very afternoon. There are no come-backs, no interruptions, no discourse. It's all you -- and what you want to say -- while you savagely use a toothpick dipped in bleach to get to the stuff that has collected at the base of the kitchen faucet.

I'm trying to make some sort of Biblical or spiritual application here, but the only one I can come up with is Jesus in the Temple; and to compare my swiping toilets with a vengeance to Jesus driving out money changers - well that feels blasphemous. Jesus' anger was justified, and to my knowledge no money-changer was fatally harmed during the filming of that event. I may or may not be justified in my anger, but at least I'm not acting on it in a way that destroys anything - except for the soggy celery in the bottom of the fridge.

jm1/29/11