Lost stuff

I had one of those Swiffer Dusters - the kind with the long handle. I used it a lot. 'Dusting' is one of the more loathsome household chores, in my opinion, and being able to dash through the house with my handy Swiffer was a big improvement in just getting it over with. As I think I've admitted before, my house is presentably neat and clean but probably not up to a white glove inspection of the tops of light bulbs or baseboards or things-on-top-shelves.

And then the Swiffer Duster disappeared. One day it was there. The next it wasn't. Disaster!

I always put things away when I'm done with them. And although Mark doesn't, neither is he inclined to embark on a Home Dusting Campaign at any point by himself, so this was a real mystery. We looked everywhere, to no avail. And in the meantime, dust collected on the coffee table; the TV screen was barely visible under the layer collected by the slight static charge there. I would be damned if I was going to go back to old and time consuming dusting methods. It HAD to be somewhere.

Finally Mark gave up. He stopped at Home Depot on his way home from work one day and bought a new one. But it was the wrong kind - the short-handled kind where the handle falls off easily. Yes, the house got 'dusted' - once, with the new tool - but it just wasn't the same. I fell off the routine again. But this complicated the matter. Not only had we lost a perfectly serviceable tool, but we had spent money to replace it with an inferior product. With all that 'investment' I really didn't want to dump more money down that black hole. (I am very selective in my 'thriftiness' obviously, considering the money I am quite willing to spend on other more frivolous things.)

Dust accumulated again. We started sneezing. The cats started playing in dust bunnies rolling off the tables. On the 'up' side, we were able to economize on notepaper by making notes to each other in the dust on the tabletop in the breakfast nook. I might be exaggerating here a bit with literary license...

OK. We finally broke down and bought a new one. Janet was coming to visit and it would be hard to explain such a narrow interpretation of the rules of cleanliness vs. economy. I may be bizarre but at least I know when I am being bizarre. The house was clean, the visit was wonderful and now I am back to dusting regularly. What a relief. It wasn't so bad to get a new one after all.

And this morning I found the old one. It was underneath the dining room table, with it's dusty head resting on the edge of one of the chair seats and its long handle intermingled with the substantial legs of the table. I only saw it because I had to bend down and look under the table to find Maddie who was squeaking excitedly about something under there and wanted me to look for her.

Now I have another dilemma: You just can't have two of the retched things!