Cleaning

My house is immaculate at the moment.  Perfectly clean.  My son vomited a ton on my living room floor the other night.  But my house smells like a rose.

SHE is coming tomorrow.  My MIL.  And I hate that I've made the house perfect.  That I can't stand to have a thing out of order.

She's not a clean freak.  In fact, she's a slob.  Sort of.  Maybe more of a semi-hoarder.  She cleaned her kitchen once after a remodel and declared it "organized".  Nope, it was clean.  It was nowhere near organized.  I have a favorite story of how I went to a her house one time.  My SIL had gone through her fridge and "cleaned it out".  Lord knows what she threw out.  But several hours later, I went to get some salad dressing.  I looked at the expiration dates.  They were SIX YEARS OLD (notice I said "they".  There was more than one).  No lie.  My husband was in high school when she bought these dressings, and we were our of college at this dinner.  Gross.  Like I said, I can only imagine what SIL threw out.

She stores stuff.  And keeps stuff.  And has piles of things.  She's not really messy.  She's pretty clean.  But she washes her bathmats with her bed sheets.  She is more interested in the "end" than the "process".   As long as it's done, it didn't matter how it got that way.  She washed my clothes (without my permission: no one washes my clothes) once.  Not only did shit shrink, but my BILs helped themselves to some of it.

So, this lady, a somewhat tidy, but not organized and clean person puts me on edge.  And it pisses me off.  I shouldn't care what she thinks of my home.  Her position of expertise is compromised to say the least.

Yet, she will come to my home and find fault.  When she came to my brand new, month old home, she noticed that the chandelier still had the stickers that told what light bulbs to buy.  I'm sure it's a federal law to remove these stickers, unless your a homeowner, and all she could notice was that they were still there.  In my new, beautiful home, that's what she saw.  Around the same time, one of the things she noticed is that I hadn't watered my plant.   The thing had just moved, was adapting, and was a bit droopy.  But she felt the need to notice.   A couple of months ago, I left a huge pile of clean, but not folded laundry on my dryer.  EFIL "noticed" that for me.  EVERY little fault they can find, they point out.  I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

When my son was born, her perfect, long-desired grandchild was born, she pointed out he had her MIL's "unfortunate nose".  How is a new mom supposed to take that?  She also pointed out he had his mother's "broad forehead".  DH didn't understand why that was rude.  I figured referring to anything about a woman as "broad" was rude.

My SIL, whom I'm working on a post for (wife of BIL, whom I recently glorified in blog form), is the same way.  If I don't have every damn thing in order, she has to point it out.  Several years ago, I'd come back from a three week trip in Europe (backpacking).  I was exhausted and piled all the souvenirs on the table.  SIL "dropped in" and sputtered about how I must be organizing...or something...because surely I wouldn't have such clutter in my home.  This is the same SIL who avoids inviting me over because she doesn't think her home is clean enough for me.  Can I say projection?

I don't want to appear perfect.  I do like my home to be clean and clutter free (in the public places, you should see the closets) when people come by.  I don't want towers of shit falling on them and I don't want them to feel like they need to disinfect themselves after using my bathroom.   And frankly, I'm not down with a ton of clutter.  But I'm not a nazi.  I'm not a clean freak.   But I feel if I falter at all, it'll be lauded as a weakness.

My MIL has "worried" over lots of things my SIL does.  She tells me (or DH) about how she had to clean SILs "whole house" when she had her baby.  Or how SIL has planters warts.  Or really, really intimate details about SILs labor and the....ummm..... "nature of the terrain".  Yuck.  She tells me how she doesn't like her stove or doesn't like how they parent (not that she would be "that MIL"-her words-and say something to them).  So, I know if I slip up, the whole damn family will know about it.

I'm trying not to care.  Trying. But sometimes it's fun to be "perfect" and fuck with her that way too.