The Dirty Truth

Very exciting things were happening in the Household last night.  We got BUNK BEDS (for the children, not for Husband and I....although...hmmmm......).  And we also got a NEW VACUUM CLEANER!  It was only after I put it together and vacuumed the carpet for the first time in a couple weeks (I know...gross...but the other one was broken!  Hence the new one!  STOP JUDGING ME!) that I got perhaps a bit too excited about it.  I rushed over to Husband to show him the bag-less filter and all the DIRT!  The HAIR!  Look at everything it picked up!  That’s amazing!  And then a small piece of my soul died.  Being a stay at home slave, I do most (all) of the cleaning.  I mean, what else am I doing?  I can’t sit around and eat bon bons and watch back to back episodes of Intervention all day.  And yesterday I realized the ugly truth: new, shiny, convenient cleaning products make me...happy?  No.  Yes!  They do!  Sometimes I roam the cleaning aisles at Target just looking at all the products that promise to make my life easier.  Sometimes I buy them.  Some things I just dream about.  Like the Swifter Vac.  A device that not only uses the swifter sweeper cloths, but also sucks the dirt like a vacuum?  Think of all the crumbs I could get!  Think of how easy it would be to whip that thing out after dinner!  Think of the possibilities!  Maybe one day I’ll buy it; one day when I’m not feeling guilty about all the money we spend on diapers and food.  Slaves don’t need fancy things...we just need elbow grease.  

This also leads me to believe that all those sexist commercials showing women so HAPPY to have a dish soap that not only cuts through tough grease, but will also give you soft hands, are true.  We like soft hands.  And we hate dishes.  We just want to get it over with and if this soap is going to make it go a tiny bit faster, well then, dammit, I’ll buy it.  I WILL BUY IT! 

Now if you’ll excuse me, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Variety Pack I bought yesterday is calling my name.  Which one to use first?  The kitchen scrubber?  The powerful multi-purpose?  Or the bath scrubber?  Oh, the possibilities...the possibilities...