You wouldn’t believe the amount of things that can be checked off a to-do list when you take a sick day.
(And by sick I mean my lip was swollen enough to make me look like a fish. I actually stayed home to spare innocent onlookers a nightmare or two.)
So what if I slept ’til 11 am?
So what if I watched 2 hours of The Bachelorette in my pajamas eating cereal .. then Combos .. then a Reeses cup.
(No, these things were not on my to-do list.)
Every now and then, you just need a day to relax. And I did. Until about 2:30, when the pile of clean laundry next to me stopped yelling my name and actually jumped in my lap. Which was about the same time the dishes on the counter (and in the sink, and on the table) were a bit too much for me to handle.
Which was about the same time I turned on the 90’s station on TV and started jamming to ‘Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It’ and ‘Spice Up Your Life.’
Don’t judge me.
A little flashback to the grunge era was all it took to get me in the mood to clean.
Now, to me, the term “clean” does not merely mean washing dishes, vacuuming the carpet, Windexing the bathroom. Those things are necessary, yes. But there’s a difference between straightening up and cleaning.
Thanks, Mom, for teaching me the difference. (Seriously.)
So yesterday, I cleaned. With SoftScrub and Murphy’s Oil. Everything. I even broke out the skinny vacuum attachment and made sure to get in the creases where the carpet meets the wall.
This is serious business, y’all.
As I was bleaching the bathroom tile with a Q-tip (okay, that’s actually a lie), Piper got all up in my business whining, crying and letting off ungodly odors that almost made me lose the Combos from earlier. So I let her out in the back yard to do her business.
She did.
And then, she took off. And I’m pretty sure I called her a badword.
Or two.
So there I was – no makeup, a swollen lip, hair that resembled Medusa, old raggedy clothes that should have hit the trash can a decade ago, hands covered in bleach … and who knows what else – running around the block screaming (seriously, screaming) Piper’s name, followed by death threats that I was taking very seriously.
A real quick story:
When I was a kid living at home, this old man stopped in front of our house to pick up his dog that had obviously run away. That old man yanked that dog by its collar into the bed of his pickup and wailed on that dog with his open hand. The dog cried. And so did I. I begged my parents to let me call the animal shelter or the cops or somebody from the Projects – anyone! That man was abusing that poor, innocent dog!
I totally understand that man now.
Anyway.
I finally caught up to her as she was sniffing some trash two blocks away. I leashed her and we walked back home as I berated her the whole way. She went to her bed without a bone.
That’ll teach her.
So I continued cleaning. Scrubbed the bathtub, moved furniture to vacuum, replaced furniture after vacuuming, scrubbed the toilet inside and out (not one of my favorite activities) and even cleaned out the linen closet.
I’m not sure why I need 18 bottles of lotion, 7 bottles of shampoo and conditioner that haven’t been used in a year, 4 tubes of hydrocortisone cream and 162 clear plastic hair ties. But apparently I do.
It was about time for ManFriend to come home from work, and I was three rooms away from having a completely clean apartment, which of course I decided to save for another sick day. I thought it would be nice to surprise him with dinner as soon as he walked in the door, considering our last conversation had gone something like this:
ManFriend: What are we doing for dinner?
Me: I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?
MF: No.
Typical.
So I whip up some bacon-and-cheese-stuffed chicken with corn and black bean salad. Yum, right?
As I was putting the chicken in the oven to bake for 12 minutes, ManFriend walked in the door.
With a Giovannis box. Containing a calzone.
Of all the nights that we fight about deciding on dinner, we both took action and it was a fail.
We ate the calzone.
And that’s what I did on my sick day.
I have a million shampoos, soaps and conditioners. I am slowly working my way through all of them. It’s terrible.
You make me proud, Clean on!