I do not clean. I don’t even make beds. I think it’s some kind of a deliberate rebellion against my childhood, when as the oldest child of a single and hard-working mother, I had way too many “chores” to do. So now, I am a 35-year old woman who will argue over who actually got out of bed first in order to get out of having to make the damn thing. That’s right, my husband and I have an agreement that the last person in bed has to make it. And occasionally, that is me, although in all fairness I should add that my husband is a cheater. Coming back to bed counts as being last in bed, so if I walk back into the bedroom and sit on the end of it to tell him something while he is in it, and he gets up to head to the shower, well then technically I am the “last person in bed” and have to make it. Lame! But I digress…

We have two kids, two cats and until recently two dogs. And we have a cleaning woman who comes in once a week. I know this is a luxury, and believe me, I am not lazy nor do I think I am at all spoiled. But in a house as active as ours, it is a necessity, such as paying the mortgage and heating bills. And so we worked her into our budget and it is positively the best thing that we spend our money on. I do vacuum occasionally and I clean off the countertops in the kitchen when I’m finished cooking, and of course there is the laundry, but other than that, at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is scrub a toilet.

So that is where Mary comes in. She is incredible, she’s had this amazingly tortuous life and she has somehow found humor to get her through it. She is wicked funny, loves my girls and “gets” my husband. That is a tall order to fill. But the woman does not mince words. At all. Ever. And she knows what she likes when it comes to cleaning and she won’t settle for anything less. There’s only one kind of mop she will use, and she is extremely fussy when it comes to her cleaning supplies. If it doesn’t have ammonia or bleach in it, well it just won’t do. It can’t just be clean. It has to smell clean. Which means it should burn your nose hairs off when you inhale.

A few weeks ago, in my attempt to have our household cross over into “greener” pastures, I purchased a book called “The Healthy Home Workbook: Easy Steps for Eco-Friendly Living” to help me out. I’ve mentioned before that I find the “guidelines” a little confusing: ingredients, products, percentages. It can and has blown my mind on more than one occasion. But this is a clever little manual because it gives three alternatives. An easy one, with minimal commitment. A second alternative that takes a little more effort and then the final alternative, which basically will kill your bank balance. But the beauty of this book is that you can pick and choose what is most important to you. I like that. Making the switch with 100% commitment right now, for us, would just not be feasible. Financially or any other way.

So as Mary ran out of cleaning products, I replaced them with more earth-friendlly products.

No go.

She not-so-subtly left me a note when she left this week that she wants: Clorox Clean-Up… in the BIG bottle and she’d also like Fabuloso for the floors and the list kind of goes on and on. Her way, I imagine, of telling me that my healthy alternatives suck.

And I admit it, I don’t mince words much myself, but I’m a little afraid of Mary. She’s like the Alpha Female. And I don’t even know if that’s possible, so maybe she’s just like the Alpha Male but with female parts. Whatever. I am afraid to tell her that I don’t want to use that stuff anymore. I think she’s going to make fun of me. I know she is. And that makes me giggle. I think that’s one of the reasons I like having her around so much. She’s not afraid to make fun of me. But Coco is about to start crawling and I really don’t want her to do it on a floor that’s just been mopped with bleach. Bleech. So, I think I will leave her a not-so-subtle note about my preferences and then plan on “missing” her that day. Basically, I’ll be hiding out at the mall with the girls until she’s gone. I’m so tough, you know?

Coco, growing up so fast.