On winning the spider web war: Last Friday, a friend stopped by

Wednesday, November 21, 2012


... and I was on the phone, a conference call at the end of an historic week of work.  Some sixty stories for one client.  Magazine articles for another.  A keynote to write.  An interview to conduct with a pretty cool editor of Gen Y novels (look for the link later this week).  All completed with the mumbling mouth of a recent gum graft refugee. 

The point is, I hadn't cleaned.  I had (is this still the term for it?  does Urban Dictionary have something better?) let things go.  I had left things to the endless arms of compulsive spiders who had decided to knit me a pair of curtains here, a nice little table covering here.  It was all such loveliness in its own right, but it was even lovelier when the sun shined upon the spider's handiwork, illuminating all, adding a few spectral sunshiny reflective colors for fun. 

And then, like I said, a friend stopped by.

I was h o r r i f i e d.  Found out.  Exposed.  My poor friend could barely hide her surprise that her formerly compulsively clean neighbor had yielded her home to vicious animals.  Beth Kephart has given up.  That's what my once-neighbor almost said.

But I am here to report that I am making things right.  I have gotten down on my knees.  I have mopped, ragged, swiped.  I have arranged flowers.  I have dragged the vacuum cleaner from end to end of my tiny house.  I have asserted myself.  I have, until the spiders weave again, won.

Beth Kephart has not given up.  Yet.

3 comments:

Q said...

Beth, you don't have to have an immaculate house all the time.

Joanne R. Fritz said...

I second what Q said.

To quote Ruby Barnhill: "A bright person can always think of something better to do than housework."

And Erma Bombeck had a lot of funny things to say about cleaning. Here's one of them: "My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance."

I spent far too much time and energy cleaning my house when my kids were younger. And you know what? I wish I'd spent more time writing.

No one's going to remember whether or not my house is clean when they stop by. Chances are, theirs isn't clean either!

Jennifer R. Hubbard said...

Next time, if you don't evict your spiders, they could have a play date with my spiders.

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