So Much For The Overflowing Closet Method

My parents weren’t incredibly fastidious, but they did like to generally keep the house tidy. I say this with an admittedly skewed perspective since my maternal grandparents had a house that constantly looked like a Home & Gardens cover page, but still, I don’t think they were any more concerned with cleanliness than is considered average.

Of course, when we had company over, the usual flurry of chores ensued, which was always the most annoying thing ever to me as a kid, but now that I have my own place I realize the necessity of them. Our home was tidy but not a surgical scrub room.

We lived in an area where multi-story homes were pretty normal, and ours was no different; we had two main floors, plus a basement and attic. As is pretty standard, the second floor was bedrooms and such, and the first floor was where most hosting was done. One day, we had some sort of party and a guest had brought her young son with her. He at some point wandered upstairs, which no one was bothered by; he was well-behaved and we didn’t mind him poking around. However, almost immediately, he ran back down the stairs and started tugging on his mom’s skirt.

“Mommy! Their upstairs! It’s actually clean!“

The mother was mortified and kept trying to shush her son, but apparently, the idea of a house being clean even in the places that company wasn’t planned to see was just such a mind-blowing concept that the little boy would not stop talking about it.

My dad thought it was an absolute hoot, and though my mom was too polite to say so, I think she was a little bit proud that even if her house wasn’t up to her parents’ “can eat off the floor” standards, at least someone was impressed!