The Vacuum

Lynilu gave me a great idea for a story, but before I tell the story I need to share something with you that happened tonight. I was watching The Golden Girls and started laughing. Ben was right next to me and he looked at me like, "What in the world are you doing?" Yea, I think it's been a while since I have truly laughed. I realized tonight how much the animals were affected by my sadness and it makes me so sad for them. But things are looking up and I am feeling wonderful. Just ask Lynilu....she seems to be the target of my horrible sense of humor lately. Thankfully she is a good sport about it. At least I hope so.

In Lynilu's comment she said I should share the story about my privilaged upbringing. So here goes:

I was a spoiled brat. Yes it's true, I was spoiled and a brat. My Father was (he is now retired) a Coorporate Attorney and this allowed me to have a lot of things and never worry about money. I feel I am lucky because I never wanted for anything, but I think that also hurt me in a lot of ways. My Mom was a stay at home Mom until I was in Middle School and even then she only worked part time while I was in school. It wasn't until I was in high school that she went back to work full-time.

For some reason my Mom did not teach me to be domestic. She never taught me how to cook or do any cleaning. I think part of the whole cleaning thing is; we had someone come in every week to clean the house. So I was never taught how to scrub a toilet, bathtub..etc. It is interesting because when I was in middle school my parents did teach me how to do my laundry and I was responisble for it.

Well, when I was about 10 my parents were having people over and my Mom asked me to vacuum the living room. I seriously think this was the first time I used the vacuum because it was very aparent that I had no idea what I was doing. Our carpet was kind of thick and I turned on the vacuum and drove it like a car. I made all kinds of circles and because the carpet was thick you could see exactly where I had been in the living room. When my Mom came back she freaked and said, "what have you done?"

When I got married and moved out I had no idea what I was doing. I was a horrible housekeeper and you could see that just from walking into the apartment. One day I was out with some ladies from church and we decided to stop at the apartment. I really didn't think anything about it until they all walked in. I wouldn't say they looked shocked, but I finally realized what the place looked like, As soon as they left I spent rest of the day cleaning the apartment. I decided right then and there that when I leave the house my house needs to be clean because you never know who will be walking into your house.

So, that is my story about the vacuum. Hey, my childhood may not have been perfect, but I have some really good stories because of it.