Mansitting...

Mansitting, much like babysitting, is hard work. I come home from work to find a seemingly clean house. Now that two men live in my house there is double trouble. I find the meat thermometer in the Pyrex baking dish on the counter. The same Pyrex baking dish that is to be returned to my friend, Courtney. I can only assume that the meat thermometer is clean since the kitchen counter has been cleared of all dirty dishes. A pleasant surprise. I begin my 4th round of Christmas baking, I can't find my glass measuring cups, my frustration rises as I scour the kitchen searching only to find my glass measuring cups nestled deep within the Tupperware cupboard. Now as the woman of the house I know that these glass measuring cups belong in the lower cupboard to the left of the oven and that the meat thermometer belongs in the drawer below the silverware. I look up to find the dish detergent front and center on the counter top. That too has a place to call home. Under the sink next to the dishwasher. I begin to think, how hard is it to put stuff where it belongs.

My next effort is to clean the house before leaving for one day in Moscow with my friends Vic and Sharon and 4 days with my Mom in Lewiston. I find socks stuffed behind couch cushions, sweaters on window sills and a whole array of other items in places they do not belong. I know that they probably have great reasons for all of these things but I personally would never put my sweater down in a windowsill or shove my socks deep within the couch cushions. NEVER!

Soon my men find me with smiles on their faces. Did you notice that we cleaned the kitchen? Thoughts race through my head, "Oh I noticed all right, who taught you two to clean, you didn't' even wipe all the counters down or sweep the floor. That isn't clean." Then I shake myself back to reality remember the rules of mansitting. They did try. If they hadn't the meat thermometer would be drowning in a sea of suds with the glass measuring cups, I wouldn't have dish detergent because it would still be at the store stocked neatly on a shelf instead of on my kitchen counter and I would have been mad that no one had done anything at all to help me. So I smile warmly back at them and politely and genuinely say "Thank you." Mansitting is tough work.