I grew up in a house with two sets of indoor stairs. I work in a place with stairs. Cleaning stairs is possibly one of the worst jobs. Picking up dog crap is better than cleaning stairs, in my opinion.
Mother and Father came up to my homestead last weekend and cleaned (Father - fixed) all the things that I don't like to clean. This included the car, the house windows, the garden bed (that's right, she weeded!), and some other tasks that I don't even like to think about. It is so nice that Mother comes up and does some spring cleaning for me! But, this got me thinking about those stairs. If I had stairs in my home, they would have been really dirty and Mother would have had to vacuum all the hair, dust balls, dead flies, etc from the stairs.
When I was little, I pretended the vacuum the stairs. Sissy and I would have to take turns cleaning the stairs and more often than not, I just turned on the vacuum (but didn't actually move it) and I picked up the pieces of tree needles out of the corner with my fingers and called it good. That's probably why Mother and I got in screaming matches over chores. I pretended to do them, she noticed, and I hated that. "Housework when done correctly can kill you" was my childhood mantra.
So, this morning, while I was admiring my clean house, I thought, man, I am so glad I bought a house with no stairs. I may regret it later in life when I want a bigger house but I will always know that a cleaning a smaller house is easier than a big one. (Or at least fake cleaning a smaller house is easier than fake cleaning a big one...although big ones usually come with more closet space. Damn, oh well.)
2 comments:
HaHa ! I actually don't mind vacuuming stairs. Since our growing up house had 2 sets of stairs, we were obviously edumacated on 'the way' to get the job done - - thus the trickle down to you. Our 1st house was a one story - - it does have its advantages !
No stairs! I never thought about the consequences of living in a house without stairs...they're a perfect place for time out (another reason you would hate them), playing with a slinky, riding down them in a cardboard box, chasing someone up then grabbing their leg and pulling them back down, hiding at the top and scaring the person coming up, spying, eavesdropping. Vacuuming is a small price to pay.
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