Friday, July 30, 2010

A clean house

from w
Not much happening here today, just a morning at the church office and cranky when someone changed the settings so I had to fiddle a lot before printing out the newsletter for Sunday. The lawnmower is fixed so Peceli did a tidy-up while I pulled out weeds that look like lovely yellow flowers, and the printer-scanner is fixed. While tidying up the computer files I found scraps of writing so here is one small story. True of course.

A clean house

She told me that the kitchen had a lovely wooden floor which her neighbour would polish, on hands and knees, every morning of the week from Monday to Friday. That’s not all because the floor was under a roll of lino which she had to move each day first. A square of lino rolled up carefully then placed back. But that’s not all. On top of the lino she spread newspapers, the Herald Sun right into the corners covering the whole floor. She did the same for the passage from the front door to the kitchen. By 10 a.m. each day she knew she’d done a good job, a decent job and her space was perfect, covered by the Herald Sun.

Why, I asked the storyteller.

Well her husband was a home decorator and he said to his wife, ‘Edna, you must keep the house tidy because I might bring a client home and if our house is not up to scratch, well. I’ll lose a client won’t I?

I suppose she did for herself also. That floor was her life. But who saw it under the newspapers? No-one. She knew it was done and felt proud. Did he ever bring a client home?

Not that I’ve heard of. But if he did he would have to phone on ahead to tell her to remove the newspapers.

Perhaps they lived in a muddy street.

Oh yes. This was in England in Yorkshire, very muddy.

Perhaps it was about traipsing mud into the house.

No not really. She made sure he took off his shoes at the door. Everyone had to.
I only know about her obsession when I had to give her a letter that had come to my house by mistake. We lived down the road. We were near neighbours for fourteen years and that’s the only time I entered her house. He called her his Wee Woman, my husband told me. I suppose he was proud of her in his own way.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Jana Bouc said...

My sister's ex-husband went a little crazy about germs when he was in medical school. If she got up during the night to use the bathroom he'd make her change her socks before she got back into bed even though she'd just walked in them about 10 feet and back. And if she was barefoot she'd have to wash her feet first. Strange obsessions people get with clean but your lady was really over the top!

9:13 PM  

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