Clean Freak

You taunt me, you super-human-domestic-goddess with your sparkly-clean-pottery-barn house. Your counter tops gleaming, basking in the sun that shines through freshly cleaned windows, somehow devoid of the sticky finger prints that plague my own home. Your hard wood floors, polished slick and free of pet fur. You lie to me. "Oh my house is a disaster" you coo into the phone. But I know better. You embarrass me as you blush begging forgiveness for the solitary water glass and a lone pair of tennis shoes that mar your pristine living room. Even your children's playroom on a bad day somehow still lends evidence to the fact that you are a self-proclaimed "neat freak". The toys all look shiny and new, there are no missing parts, no broken pieces. How do you do it?

How?

Please tell me. I would love to know. I long to be you, but I am failing miserably. I want nothing more than to have a home like yours. One with a refrigerator that I am not ashamed to open, one where the linen closet houses neat rows of fluffy color-coded towels, one that smells of citrus and pine trees. I try, I really do. I am in a constant battle with the other inhabitants of this home.

Please pick up your toys.

Please wash your hands.

Please don't eat in the living room.

Please put away your socks!

I sweep incessantly. I use Windex like it's going out of style. I have hired a cleaning person to scrub down the house every other week, and yet for the most part my house is usually in a condition that has me avoiding inviting over guests.

So please Ms. Becky Homecky-tell me what is your secret? Do you have a *clean* gene that I am just simply missing? Do little leprechauns visit your home and wave a magic wand? Do you stay up to until 3am cleaning each day? Did your strike a deal with the devil? Please for heaven's sake tell me.

My house is dying to know.