Beware Of What’s Under The Clutter!

As many of you know, I had to travel for work not long ago.  Yes, I’ll admit it, I made another trip to the mouse’s house without hubby.  If you remember back a few months ago, you’ll probably recall that hubby was none too thrilled that I made a visit to that magical place called Disney without him.  I will say that this trip wasn’t exactly to Disney per se, but it was to Orlando, which as you can imagine, is far closer to Mickey than NJ, so as far as hubby is concerned I visited the mouse without him again…..

 

Needless to say, these trips are not fun.. they are filled with meetings from 8:00am-6:00pm which are only followed by a hour break to change and be ready for a group dinner by 7:00pm.  So, it’s not like I’m frolicking through the magical kingdom holding hands with fun-filled characters.  On this particular trip I had a fantastic view of the hotel pool area from the hallway of the conference center where I spent my days.  Yes, that’s about how close I got to enjoying anything Orlando has to offer.

 

Anyhow, this post isn’t actually about Florida, or work, or my trip… it’s actually about what happened at home while I was away.

 

When I awoke at 4:30am to catch my flight, I double checked the house to make sure it was appropriately pre-cleaned for the cleaning ladies, as the day I left for my business trip was actually a cleaning lady day.   After everything was sufficiently prepped, I left for my trip knowing that the house would be scrubbed while I was gone….. HOORAY!

 

What I neglected to remember was that hubby would still be in our freshly cleaned home while I was gone.  Which sort of works in direct conflict with the concept of “freshly cleaned”.  I quickly realized that I’d miss the newly cleaned smell.  I’d miss the empty trash cans and apparently I’d miss the entire “clean home” experience since I didn’t return for 3 days after the house was cleaned.  After all, a lot of unclean things can happen in 3 days.

 

I’ll pause for a moment in this story to lay a little ground work for where I’m headed.

 

There are some things in life that you just don’t subject others to….

 

On that list you might find things like:

 

• Hubby’s smelly gym socks
• The inside of hubby’s nightstand
• The inside of hubby’s closet

And…. 

• Hubby’s Man Cave 

So, although we have cleaning ladies scrub our house from top (to almost bottom).. I do not ask them to tackle the man cave.  If I did, I’d probably be looking for new cleaning ladies!!

 

The state of the man cave scares even me…. as I’m never quite sure what I may find down there or if I might get attacked by a life-size dust bunny.  So, even when our house is clean, the man cave remains in it’s manly, untouched (read as: filthy) state.

 

So, about 3 weeks ago, we scheduled a poker game with some friends and I said to hubby (with 3 weeks notice) “Can you please find some time over the next few weeks to clean the basement so I’m not horrified to have friends down there” —  A simple request with plenty of notice for him.

 

And then, I went away on cleaning lady day.

 

So, back to my original story.

 

I return home from my magical trip to a conference room in Orlando and I arrive to a freshly cleaned home.  Yes, there’s some clutter.  Yes there’s a pile of mail on the counter (don’t forget hubby doesn’t touch the mail) and yes, it lacks the newly cleaned smell BUT, to my surprise, I see a vacuum at the bottom of the basement stairs (which is far better than seeing a pile of towels!!).  Oh my, hubby is actually cleaning the basement… maybe it really was a magical trip to Disney.  Either that or he had the fairies working overtime while I was gone.  Either way, I do a little silent dance in the kitchen as I look in wonderment at the effort hubby put into cleaning his cave.

 

Then I open the trash cabinet.  You know the one…. The one that hubby can’t seem to find to throw away his soda cans.

 

And, I’m looking at it somewhat puzzled.  The recycling bag is full.  Hmmmmm… I wonder.  How can that be?  I was only away for 3 days.. there’s just no way hubby consumed 40+ cans of soda during this time.  And, I know that the cleaning ladies were here the day I left, which generally means empty trash cans with new bags.  So, I quizzically say to hubby “Did the cleaning ladies forget to empty the trash cans this week?”.  And, hubby responds “No, why?”.  “Well, the recycling can seems to be full and you can’t have possibly consumed this much soda while I was gone?”.  And hubby, in his most matter of fact way says… “Oh no, those are all from the basement”.

 

Now, I’m proud to say that hubby took initiative to clean.  I’m thrilled that he even knew where to find the vacuum.  And, I’m not discounting the effort it took to pick up all the crap strewn all over his man cave.  But……. There were over 40 empty soda cans & beer bottles in the basement???  WTF??????

 

There are seriously some things I will just never, ever understand!

 

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