More MIL

Posted by: Bow down

I can't believe I forgot to mentionn this yesterday. I am sort of a dusting and vacuuming freak. For me, vacuuming means first taking the hose off and going around EVERY EDGE of my house. Then getting under the couch and so on. Followed by vacuuming each room ultra thourough and making sure the vacuum lines appear in my carpet. Often times if I notice the canister is too full I will revacuum the room after dumping it, just to be sure. I usually dust weekly and you can often find me running to my laundry room to grab my swiffer duster for on the spot jobs I notice in passing.

This is why I was mortified the first time I visited my MIL's house. The first thing I noticed was that she doesn't appear to own a vacuum. So not only are the edges of her carpet gray and about an inch thick with dust, behind her furniture is soooo dusty there are now spider webs and dust bunnies that look as though there is a family of 4000 dust bunnies living and mating on a daily basis. If I was the type of person who got hives I would have broken out in hives upon seeing this.

You would think it couldn't get worse but it can. It appears she hasn't dusted since my husband was 12 and it was his job to dust. In fact, her trinkets are so caked with dust that you can't see the faces on them or the detail anymore. In her bathroom she has a doily on her toilet, the doily is so caked with dust you actually can't see the color of it anymore. The linolium where the toilet is, is lined in gray.

I wasn't sure how to take this so I asked my husband about it. He informed me that since she is old and in her fifties it was okay that she never cleaned anymore. I thought to myself great, only about 30 more years till I'm done with chores for good.

One day I was there and I got to witness her cleaning. She took an old dirty rag and wiped around some of the obvious stuff however, didn't wipe any of the trinkets or even move them. I was mortified by this. I had no idea how to respond. She has never dusted her picture frames, or the clock on her mantel or anything. Now if I was the sort of person to have allergies or freak out, I probably would have had to go to the hospital upon seeing this as it would cause me a major system shut down.

Yet, my husband has a fit if I leave mail on the counter or a pair of shoes out in the open. HUH!