No, those aren’t maggots.  It’s just rice.

You would automatically assume that I was in the kitchen….but the area being scrutinized was my bathtub.  Why was there rice on the side of the bathtub?  Well, if you’ve been a mom as long as I have, you just don’t ask those questions anymore.  Sure, when you had more than four brain cells, you would have turned this into a Sherlock Holmes-worthy whodunit but these days…..maybe you just don’t want to know or even care.  You need to preserve those precious remaining brain cells for more important endeavors, such as killing them with a glass of wine at the end of the week while chatting with your best friend about nothing in particular.

I have never claimed to be a stellar housekeeper.  Just when I thought I got my messy tendencies under control, I had kids.  At first, with just the one crawling around, I was great.  Vacuumed everyday, things were wiped off.  As one turned into two and I began working full-time, it all went awry.

Now I am embarrassed to admit that I never got around to the thorough pre-move-in, sanitizing scrub down when we moved in here at the beginning of November.  I guess exhaustion and work trump germaphobia.

I’m scrubbing down the tub with dish soap (yes, dish soap…so I need to do a little shopping…) so Little Miss Mermaid has a semi-clean sea to swim in.  Her interest in bathing lately has made that bathtub ring more and more noticeable.

There is nothing dignified about scrubbing a tub.  You know a woman most definitely did not come up with the “sexy french maid” costume.  How sexy is it to be uncomfortably leaning over the tub side, red faced and grimacing because it is taking all your effort to scrub with one hand while balancing your weight with the other?  Instead of a “sultry” 70′s waka-waka guitar soundtrack playing in the background, this scene is accompanied by the voice of Little Miss, asking me for the umpteenth time if those are dirty bubbles or clean bubbles and “Are you done yet?”

I am the reason why housekeepers and maid services exist.  Unfortunately, my current financial situation prevents me from using these wondrous services.  I used to have issues with the thought of having someone else do something that I am perfectly capable of doing, coming from a background of “clean up after yourself!”  Now, I fight those little guilty thoughts by telling myself that I will be stimulating the economy. I will be providing jobs.

Notice how it is all future tense.  Yes, as soon as I can afford it, I’ll have a stranger in my home judging my family’s sloth and soap scum.  I know that is seems excessive but I think it will be money well spent.  If paying a willing soul to scrub my tub leads to an hour or two of hiking or just hanging out with my kids, it is very much worth it.

After all, no one looks back on their life wishing they had gotten that tub cleaner.  Although, they might think that maybe they could have tried that costume out just once….