For those of you who know me, you know I like love need things neat, clean, and always picked up…sanitization optional. In fact, it seriously drives me crazy when there unmade beds, things left out on the floor, gook or grime build up, “cluttery” countertops or other such messes in my house. Not sure if what I have is a treatable medical condition, but I would happily sign up for a research study to find me a cure. To a degree, I wish I wasn’t so bothered by it all – it is impossible for me to stay on top of all the fingerprints, organized closets, pee around the toilets, and sports related items in the garage. I have had to prioritize what HAS to be done every day and what can wait until later. The older I get and the older my children get, it is harder and harder for me to stay on top of it all and still have time to do normal every day tasks like bathe and dress myself. Despite the fact that I know I can’t always have things “just so” I am most at peace when my house is recently vacuumed and dusted, the bathrooms are cleaned, the laundry is folded and put away, the car and garage are swept out, the closets neatly organized, and the yard is mowed and edged. Ahh…just let that idea soak in all over…wonderful, isn’t it? This is my heaven.
Much to my chagrin, I live in the real world where scenarios like I mentioned above rarely exist despite my best efforts. I have recently concluded that on the day the good Lord created me He said, “I am going to make this girl love all things clean, disinfected, orderly and organized….and then for extra fun, I am going to bless her with an all male household AND a septic pumping business!” Isn’t life fun?!
I must admit that because I have been blessed with boys I have been forced to relax (to a degree…) my version of “picked up” and organized….otherwise my husband would have had to commit me years ago. I am doing my best to train my sons to grow up to be good, clean and household-friendly husbands. For now, I take it one day at a time. I thank God that I get 18 years to teach them things such as showering regularly, changing underwear more than just once a week, brushing teeth daily (twice would even be nice…), keeping rocks and bugs and mud outside, and a list of many other activities I assumed (until birthing boys…) was just automatically understood.
However, despite learning how to curb my need for perfection I still seem to run up against situations that leave me begging for Prozac in monumental dosages. Like just last week when Marty the dog was sprayed by a skunk. Talk about making a girl consider an impromptu trip to Tahiti…
So, Marty, our beloved hound dog, decided for extra fun one night last week that getting sprayed by a skunk would be oodles of fun. Needless to say, when my husband let him in the house for the night it was more than obvious that our dog got sprayed and got sprayed good. At the time, it was about 30 degrees outside, so we had to clean him in the house AND leave him in the house so he wouldn’t get sick. I had ingredients to give him a tomato bath and dog shampoo to wash him in as well, but we also Googled how best to clean a skunk-sprayed-dog and got a hydrogen-baking-soda mixture that I poured on him for good measure. After Marty’s triple bath, the bathroom needed cleaned and de-skunked so I did what I could to clean and sanitize. Once that was done, I carried my used cleaning supplies to the trash outside only to find upon coming back into the house that it WREAKED of skunk…I mean it was as if a whole family of skunks now resided in every corner of my house! To make matters even worse, I was throwing a little Christmas jewelry party for some of my girlfriends the very next night and now my house smelled like Night of the Living and Spraying Skunk!! In a panic, I started lighting all the scented candles I owned. I figured even a vanilla-sugar-cookie-lavender-pumpkin-sweet-jasmine-powered-puff-cake would smell better than skunk. Next, I found a ½ bottle of Febreze in the cabinet in which I went on a spraying frenzy. The couches, carpet, even the cat got sprayed. Unfortunately, at the end of the night, despite all my efforts, skunk smell still pervaded my home. The next morning, I decided I needed to cook and bake to fill the house with more aromas. So, after lighting my vanilla-sugar-cookie-lavender-pumpkin-sweet-jasmine-powered-puff-cake candles, I went to the kitchen to make as many strong smelling items as I could. I started with sausage, baked some bread and cookies in late morning, had me some beef flavored tacos for lunch and then baked some more cookies early afternoon – all the while making BBQ ribs in the crock pot. Periodically during the day I would walk outside, take in a couple deep breaths to clean my nostrils of skunk-smelling particles and then walk back into the house to see if there was any trace of that mono-chromatic rodent left in my house! By about 3 o’clock, I was pretty sure I had defeated the stink war.
But, this was not the end of my nightmare! As I pulled out of the driveway to pick up my boys from school, there lying in my front lawn was a dead and mangled black and white carcass…with Marty the skunk-lover-dog running towards it to “play” with it over and over again!! My house, finally free of skunk smells on the inside now had my dog re-skunking himself all over again outside!! Was there to be no end to this skunk-smelling horror?! I grabbed a shovel out of the garage and went over to get the dead skunk. If nothing else, before this day was over the skunk was going to be GONE FOR GOOD. I scooped up him up all the while pushing back my gag reflex as I carted the carcass to a fenced-off portion of our property where I could bury the darn thing!!
Fast-forward two weeks…
The Christmas jewelry party went fine and no one mentioned smelling skunk inside or outside. (So I figured either I truly rid our property of the skunk smell or I served enough wine to numb their senses…honestly, I don’t care which one is true…) Marty has aired out what remnant of smells still existed despite my best washing efforts, and for now our house and overall acreage seem to be skunk free. I learned once again I can survive mess, contamination, and smells and live to tell about it. (And if all this doesn’t convince you that God has a sense of humor…sticking a clean, organized girl in the middle of a male and septic world, what will??)