We have a cleaning lady who comes over to the house every two weeks. Now, before you start lobbing any bourgeois cracks, I will say that - before certain other circumstances arose - the tidying up of our house was the only real source of conflict. As in, a certain member of this matrimonial union (the one who doesn't have a blog) rarely did any.
Of course, like everyone else who's too chincy to pay for it on a weekly basis, we spend a decent chunk of time the night before "pre-cleaning," a practice so stupid I could barely put it into words:
Pete [sweeping the kitchen floor]: Why the fuck am I doing this when the maid is coming tomorrow? This is material for a bad stand-up routine.
The Wife: We need to become Mormons.
Pete: Buh?
The Wife : So we can get another wife.
Pete: That's not the LDS, it's the FLDS, and you...you really wouldn't have a problem with this?
The Wife: Oh, she'd just be doing the cleaning. But yeah, I'd give up Diet Coke for that.
Pete: That would be pretty sweet. I'm not wearing a tie, though.
And you'll pry Central Market's Kauai blend from my cold, dead hands.
Pre-cleaning is genetic. Your great-grandmother used to do it and your grandmother does it. If I had a maid - a whole other issue - I’d probably do it too.
It’s very simple - you don’t want to be thought of as a slob by the “help”.
We used the night before teh maid came as our monthly “pick up all the crap on the floor that you don’t even see because there’s so much of it” and the cleaning ladies did the scouring of the toilets and the stove and suchlike.
My wife has explained the pre-cleaning as cogently as possible, though I still don’t totally get it: apparently if they don’t have to do the light stuff (because you’ve done the sweeping and wiped down the counters, etc) they’ll spend more of their time doing the heavy cleaning. (Scrub floors, toilets, polishing the walk-in humidor, etc). I guess they spend only so much time cleaning (at our house, anyway) and after the alloted time they move on. So the pre-cleaning is a means of focusing the house keepers’ attention on that crappy stuff you *really* don’t want to have to do.
Hey, I’m just happy if they don’t steal or get me in trouble with INS.
No Gran, pre-cleaning is not genetic, it’s gender-based. Women do it, and force their men-folk to help.
I am so totally amazed at the lack of comments on your wife’s Total Coolness. The housekeeper jazz is more like trying to do two weeks of flossing before you go to the dentist… But a team of wives??? Not only would YOU look completely cool sporting two wives(this is so selfless of her!!), but you would have the perfect marriage!!! Total peace…clean house… I’m envisioning picnics and flowers every day…Provided #2 was a dog. Was that discussed? Or make her wear big, yellow dish gloves 24/7??
OMG, the pre-cleaning for the house cleaner. That is something I NEVER understood, yet I have been involved in those on way too many occasions. Awesome!