The 409's Messin' with my Mind

Few things in life give me more satisfaction than a clean house. When all the furniture has been dusted and that last bathroom floor has been scrubbed, I couldn't be happier if I'd been handed a free week's stay at the Hyatt in Kauai. Well, that's a ridiculous comparison, but you get the point. With hands on hips, a smile on my face, and the smell of 409 in the air, I stand in the middle of the kitchen to survey the sterileness, the "next to godliness". I imagine the experience is much like that of a priest's after performing an exorcism when he announces, "Brothers and Sisters, this house is CLEAN!"

I'm not at all saying that I like house work, but it is nice to OCCASSIONALLY look into a mirror and actually see your reflection staring back. Besides, l think my most interesting thoughts come to me during cleaning, especially when I close the bathroom door and allow the chemical fumes of cleaning agents to overtake my mind. Today, I was wiping down the kids' bathroom countertop and couldn't quite seem to get rid of this...

Not a modern work of art. Princess toothpaste. Princess toothpaste smeared by two-year-old fingertips which were then undoubtedly shoved into two-year-old mouth. To me, it looks (and apparently tastes) more like the insides of a jelly donut than that which protects and fluoridates young teeth. Like his older sister, Baby Dude has inherited the recessive gene responsible for compulsive toothpaste consumption. Recent studies confirm this gene is passed down from father to child.

The sight of Smeared Princess Paste brought an almost forgotten memory to mind. I suddenly recalled a holiday trip to visit Honk's family in Boston. One of our favorite experiences there was walking the Freedom Trail. I especially loved the guided tour of the Paul Revere House with its sparsely decorated rooms, Colonnial furnishings, and tiny staircases.

It was restaged by historical preservationists to look exactly the same as when he lived there, as if the Reveres had just stepped out for a quick morning stroll or cup o' tea and would be returning shortly (only to find an onslaught of strangers traipsing through their house).

I loved this room the most. The tour guide explained that their beds were not mattresses, but a series of criss-crossed ropes that were pulled tight before they slept. Thus, our often-stated but rarely-understood bedtime saying, "Good night, sleep tight."

So, why the mini-history lesson? Well, it got me thinking about preserving life "just as it was" with everything in its place like a time capsule. What if our house is someday preserved exactly as is, smeared princess paste and all, as a museum for posterity? The childhood residence of the famed modern artist Lil' Miss and the legendary quarterback Baby Dude now open to the public as a historical landmark? Hey, it's possible! I started looking around the house and at all the things in it with different eyes, trying to imagine what a guided tour of our house might be like. Let's listen in on just a segment of the tour...

"You're now standing before the artist's first work table. Lil' Miss was famous for saying that the process of cutting paper into tiny, microscopic pieces and then scattering them across an open area, say... the entire kitchen floor, helped to clear her mind and let the creative juices flow. "

"Over here, you'll see some of Lil' Miss's very first works of art. Bathroom walls served as her first canvases and pencil was her favorite medium. She said bathrooms offered her silent seclusion, a place to quietly 'slip away and create'."

This was also the time at which she first experimented with stickers, a breakthrough technique that would later become known as 'Adhesives on Mirrors'."

"Now let's step into the toy room to take a look at Baby Dude's first ball collection. That's right. Before he could even say 'Mama', he was chuckin' these spheres right at her head!"

"And it wasn't only balls that Baby Dude threw. He also trained with this round plastic toy coin to enhance his arm strength. At the tender age of two, he hurled this toy into the toilet with superhuman force. Legend tells us his parents paid sixty-five dollars to have their plumber fish it out of the pipes. Tremendous strength for such a little man!"

"And finally, I'd like everyone to gather in close to take a look at what many of you came here to see, his very first football. Baby Dude loved to clutch this sippy cup under his arm as he'd run throughout the house. A true quarterback in the making... He could spiral throw that cup across the room and nail his target, usually his family members' foreheads, with record accuracy. No doubt, he was destined for football greatness."

Okay, I admit this might be a little over the top, but it does make a person wonder. You never know where your beginnings might ultimately lead you and what legacy you might leave behind. My legacy, of course, will be "Disturbing Thoughts While Cleaning the Bathroom".