Monday, October 08, 2007

Cleaning

One of the very few things that my wife and I disagree about is cleaning.

Since I was forcibly retired, I've cleaned the house. By guy standards, I do a decent job. By my wife's standards -- well, she does appreciate what I do. Its not as good as she would do, though, if she had the time. For a while, that was a minor sore spot with me, because I thought she was being critical of how I did it. Now, I know that she really isn't; it's just that if she were doing it, she'd do more. Dust, clean the windows, mop the ceiling, that sort of thing.

We realized, after a while, that she literally can see dirt that I cannot. Part of it is my vision -- I have some difficulty seeing minor contrasts (for example, our television has red channel display numbers against black; I can't read them) and the ability to see dust is in large part the ability to see minor contrasts -- and part of it is standards -- I just don't think that minor dust is a problem, whereas she does- if not per se, then as an indicator of future problems if not addressed now. I do recognize that this is possible. It's just not a big deal to me.

When I left the Air Force, I mentioned to the wife of a friend that I rarely cleaned (ie, dust, mop) the room, and never cleaned behind the big armchair that had come with the room. Surely not never! she exclaimed, and I offered to let her come over to my room to see. Which she did. She leaned over the armchair, peered behind it, and said "My god -- you weren't kidding!" My feeling was, I couldn't see it back there, it wasn't hurting me, so what was the point? She, obviously, felt differently. My wife does, too.

Wherever it comes from, its something that I have to work to be sensitive to. About. Concerning. Whatever....

3 comments:

genderist said...

You can come clean our house if you want. We'd be tickled to have you!

Cerulean Bill said...

Our attitude toward cleaning is about the same as what a friend of mine said once, relative to her (Protestant) and her husband (Catholic) and getting up to go to church: Neither of them wanted to do it, but only he would feel badly if he didn't.

My wife will spontaneously clean. I try very hard not to say 'what in the world are you doing?', because it's important to her, even if it isn't as important to me.

I will keep your offer in mind, should the need to practice on someone else's house arise. How do you feel about having a ShopVac and hose being used in the living room?

genderist said...

I'm for it -- so long as I'm not the one lugging it around!