Whenever I go on vacation I feel the need to leave my house spotless.  I also make lists, and check off stuff as I go.  Bathroom scrubbed? Check.  Floors vacuumed? Check.  Clothes for if it’s cold? Check.  Clothes for if it’s warm? Check. Coats? Check.  Extra coats in case somebody pukes?  Check.  Snakebite kit? We won’t be needing that but, Check.

You get the picture.  And my husband, intelligent soul that he is, gets out of the way until I’m done.

This wasn’t always the case.  Back in my college days, going on vacation meant my roommate and I would drop our books on the floor and toss a few outfits into a bag.  Clean the apartment?  And waste precious vacation hours?  Yeah right.

That inevitably led to some unpleasant surprises when we got back. 

Sometimes I regretted not majoring in biology, because the refrigerator usually held enough material for a thesis.  Still, my roommate and I weren’t nearly as bad as the neighboring Japanese guys, who were continuously having their apartment fumigated for cockroaches.  But let’s just say we didn’t obsess about cleaning.

Times have changed since those carefree college days.  Now before leaving on vacation, my house must be free of dust, the floors sparkling, and the laundry clean, right down to the last sock.  Even the ironing gets done, which is quite an achievement, since there’s usually a pile the size of a small country.  Come to think of it, I think there’s some stuff in that pile that’s been there since the last trip we took, and there’ve been rumors that any minute now the pile will follow in the footsteps of Kosovo and declare its independence.

So, as you can see, I go just a little overboard.  I actually end up doing more cleaning before leaving on vacation than I do normally. 

Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?  I mean, who cares? 

Nobody will be around to appreciate all my hard work, unless our house is broken into by a particularly sensitive thief.  I can just picture it.  As he’s taking our computer and TV, he’ll be thinking, “Wow, what clean toilets!  And the laundry smells so fresh! I wonder what fabric softener they use.”

Does anybody else think this kind of stuff, or am I just incredibly weird?

And by the time we get back everything will be just as dusty as before, because no matter how well you vacuum, when you come home you’ll always find a layer of dust swirling around your feet. I just know those dust bunnies lurk under the beds, waiting for us to leave, and then they scurry out of their hiding places to mate, like so many sea turtles on a beach.  When we come home all that’s left of their reproductive frenzy is a layer of dust, and a few unlucky offspring that just didn’t make it.

I think I hear them sniggering at me right now.

But, useless or not, I must clean nonetheless.   This must be directly linked to some gene that kicks in when you have kids.   And it must be right next to the one that compels you to tell everyone to wear clean underwear in case they get into an accident, even though you know that if there’s an accident, the chances of the underwear being clean are about as big as those of a snowball in hell.

Another vacation is coming up.  So I tell my kids, “Here, wear these garbage bags with holes cut out, sit still, and watch TV until we leave.  And whatever you do, don’t touch anything!”  That should give me enough time to finish with all my cleaning and my lists.

Bowl of food for the dust bunnies? Check!  What?  I can't help it, I'm a softie at heart.

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