So I have arrived back home from my weekend in Massachusetts safe and sound.
And let me tell you that I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't. . .
For all weekend long, aside from the whole fear of death through the flailing of limbs and splattering of organs, lurked the obsessive - but very real - thought that my house wasn't clean enough when I left it. Doesn't everybody just dread having the misfortune to die when their house is not in order. . . and then, horror of horrors, what would the next-of-kin think?
Suppose for a minute both Drip Dry and I were to die in a tragic multi-car pile-up the likes of which have never before been seen on the East Coast. In that instance family and friends of unknown origin would be entering my house, rifling through the remnants of my earthly life, holding garage sales, trying on my jewelry, and claiming this very netbook as their own. Do I want them encountering dust bunnies in the process? No! I want them to walk into my house and proclaim, This woman must have had her s**ff together, for I have never seen such a clean house in all my life! For let us not forget, my friends, that the very same next of kin are the ones who would logically be called upon to write the obituary and deliver the eulogy at my funeral.
But for some reason Drip Dry just doesn't get it.
No, my husband subscribes to the theory that leaving the house for the weekend is a simple two-step process. 1) You pack. 2) You leave.
How could anyone in their right mind live by the two-step process? What about the myriad of steps in between?
Why would you skip the step where you clean the dribbled toothpaste remnants out of every bathroom sink lest your grieving family mistakenly think it was an experiment and your obit would read, before their untimely demise the deceased and her husband had plans to enter the candy-manufacturing business?
What about the step where you clean out the refrigerator before a one-night journey? Would you want it known in your eulogy that you had been harboring a jar of capers longer than you have owned your youngest daughter?
And the clothes hangers? Why would a sane person leave hangers on the bed in the wake of packing? Do you want an insurance investigator thinking you somehow lacked the physical prowess to hang hangers back up after placing an item in your suitcase? What does that say for your driving skills?
And how about the bill paying? Do you want the as-yet-unnamed executor of your estate knowing what you paid Macy's for the dress you wore to the fatal wedding? The very same dress, in all likelihood, they would decide to bury you in? Do you want all the guests at the wake to know that the to-die-for-dress in that coffin was on sale for a mere $79???
What about the clean-up-of-every-last-bit-of-dog-hair-lest-the-next-of-kin-find-out-that-the-deceased-loved-ones-owned-a-dog? Does that step mean nothing anymore? (Oh sure, I'm fully aware of the fact that 99% of the time we leave the dog home under the watchful eye of our niece next-door, and that the dog runs around generating more furballs with each passing minute, but suppose the tragic accident were to happen within a half-hour of leaving the house. What then, smartypants?)
So I guess it all comes down to this: Who wants to look down on the remains of their earthly life from within their new heavenly home and see all their good work spoiled by a few dust bunnies?
I don't.
And I'm close to being positive that they don't even allow dust bunnies in heaven anyway. . .
