the longest post

Perhaps I have taken this retro thing too far.

Scene I just found myself in:

Splayed out on the sofa, feet up on the toy chest/coffee table, hair up in a disheveled bun, eating Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream from the carton as I watched THS: Paula Abdul; after six hours of housework.

A modern person would have achieved what I just did (clean the whole house from top to bottom) in less than two hours, using a Swiffer Wet Jet, Clorox Easy Wand, and maybe a vacuum cleaner and calling it a day. But not me! I am '50s housewife extraordinaire! I use baking soda, vinegar, essential oils, and I scrub the floors and baseboards on my hands and knees! I would pat myself on the back, but my wrists are in excrutiating pain and my back muscles are getting stiffer by the moment. Whoopsie.

The owners of our house are coming tomorrow (and there's a chance they'll stop by tonight) to look for an important document in the spare bedroom where we've been throwing all the crap that gets in our way. Considering how incensed and violated I felt when a sestet of twenty-somethings moved into my Grandma and Grandpa Risinger's beloved Loveland home, and I learned that they had turned the Game of Life family room into an extra bedroom, drilled a shower head into the butterfly-wallpapered Blue Bathroom, and put a sports flag over the front door, I was inspired to make up for the past seven months of neglect of this equally meaningful house.

Of course, it's not as if we have torn out the screen from the porch on which my golden childhood innocence was sanctified over Poudre Valley ice cream sundaes and fried chicken, or killed the raspberry bushes that were Grandpa's pride and joy. Oh wait, we have also let the yard go to pot. Well, not real pot, unless Ben's sudden interest in restoring the fountain is a cover for....

Eek. I'd better go.

***

Apologies. That was exactly the sort of cringe-worthy "stylistic flourish" I would have added to a letter or diary entry in 7th grade, thinking myself the cleverest writer of all time. And, like the "Guess who's back? Bartlet's back" incident, I cannot resist leaving it there.

The point of the ice cream, Paula-watching scene was to say: I am reconsidering my professed desire to be a housewife. It both beckons and repulses me.

Off I go to disinfect the kitchen!!!!! [another 7th grade throwback]