Boys

I live with three boys.  Now, boys are great.  They are very handy to have around when opening pickle jars, getting mixing bowls down from very high shelves, and figuring out what that weird noise coming from your car is.   I love boys, my boys in particular.

But boys suck at cleaning.

Ever since we moved in to our new place, somehow I have become the default housekeeper.  Mostly because I am the only one that sees dirt.  Seriously, I think the Y chromosome somehow fogs male eyes so they cannot actually see dirt.  In the four months since we’ve lived here, a boy has cleaned a bathroom a total of 1 times - and that’s only because I forced him to.

So, five weeks ago, I went on strike.  I was not cleaning anymore!  I would use seat protectors and wear flip flops in the shower before I cleaned another bathroom.  It was someone else’s turn, and I could wait them out.

Obviously, no one cleaned that week.

So, four weeks ago I wrote in red pen on the big whiteboard in our kitchen: Sunday cleaning day!

Sunday came… and went.  Guess who ended up cleaning the bathrooms again? Yeah, turns out I couldn't wait them out.  I have a low ick threshold.  Way lower than a boy's.

The next week, I took a slightly less subtle approach to getting someone else to clean.  I wrote on the white board:

I’m not in a terrible rush
But it would be nice to flush
A toilet that’s clean
If you know what I mean
So who’s gonna pick up a brush?

Despite my cleverness, nothing was cleaned.  No one appreciated my poetry.  Uncultured slobs. (Can you tell I was getting a little peeved at this point?)

The next week, I stepped it up a notch.  Shakespeare:

 
To be cleaned or not to be cleaned
That is the question
Whether tis nobler in the bathroom to suffer
The mold and mildew of a thousand showers
Or to take up Tilex against a sea of grime
And by scrubbing end them?
To sparkle, perchance to smell fresh
Ay, there’s the scrub
For in that cleanliness of tile what showers may come
When we have showered off our mortal soil.


I thought this would at least get a comment.  A smile.  A confused look from my ten year old… nope.  Nothing. (Okay, I might have gotten a ten-year-old eye roll, but nothing got cleaned.)

But..

The next day, guess what appeared in the bathroom?  No, not sparkling countertops and a mildew free shower.  This showed up on the bathroom counter:

In answer to my pleas for cleaning help, The Man had bought an automatic shower cleaner.  I laughed so hard I almost cried. 

The sad part?  I still don’t think anyone’s pushed the button yet. 


~Trigger Happy Halliday