Who Doesn't Love a Clean House!

When I returned home from work yesterday afternoon, I was astonished to find a clean kitchen. Not just clean--sparkling clean...thoroughly clean. At first, I was certain that my husband had come to his senses and found himself a new wife, one who actually believes that cleaning is a wifely duty. On second thought, I'd wondered if he'd really come to his senses, realized that he is stuck with me and finally hired a housekeeper. It never crossed my mind that one of the kids would clean. Why would it? I mean, they've inherited my "I'm-okay-with-the-mess" gene. It would, however, be remiss of me not to acknowledge that Miranda has been somewhat the oddity in terms of inherited genes. She tends to be a "cleaner;" at least when it comes to her bedroom. This seemed to begin about a year ago and, at the time, I'd worried that she was spending too much time with my sister-in-law who, #1 cannot sit still and #2 is an obsessive cleaner. In fact, she is so obsessively into cleaning that the standard "five second rule" about dropping food on the floor, would not exist in her house. "Oh, that piece of cookie has been on the floor for an hour? That's okay, this is Aunt Lisa's house!" "What, you made trail mix on the bathroom floor?? It's safe to eat, this is Aunt Lisa's house!"
You get the picture. Anyway, I digress.

So, when Miranda told me that she'd cleaned the kitchen, I  did what any concerned parent would do-- I felt her forehead. She just laughed and told me to look inside the refrigerator. It, too, was sparkling and, right then, I was fairly certain of only one thing. Mandy had been playing with the Oiuja Board and somehow opened a portal to hell, through which came an evil spirit that had attached itself to her, thereby possessing her.

I contemplated contacting the Catholic church, thinking that, perhaps, they could tell me how to get rid of it but thought better of that idea. They have enough trouble with their priests attaching themselves to little...err... nevermind. When I looked at the sparkling kitchen, I wondered how bad living with a possessed kid really could be unless of course, the evil spirit decided to sneak into our bedrooms at night and knock us off; that was not a pleasant thought. I almost asked Miranda what possessed her to clean, but, thankfully, caught myself before the words were actually out of my mouth. Possession is no joking matter to an evil spirit, or so I've been told anyway. Instead, I asked her why she'd cleaned the kitchen. (See, this is my attitude toward cleaning. If there is a book, a computer or a tv available, why waste your time cleaning? Hell, if there are none of these, why waste your time cleaning?) She told me that she'd been really bored all day so she'd decided to clean. Okay...no, that's not too creepy. (Evil Spirit: 1/ Miranda: 0)
 
When Melanie arrived home, I told her that her sister had cleaned the kitchen and then asked her if she'd noticed anything odd about her sister lately--well, that and I asked her if they'd been playing with the Ouija board.
 
With the kitchen clean, my thought process went something like this: Well, this saved me a couple of hours. My time is worth about $25 an hour, so, I now have $50. I could use that for shopping! Hmm. Shopping. Wish it were a Saturday but it's Monday. It's six and the mall is only open until nine. Oh, six-- that means it's dinner time. God, I don't want to mess up this clean kitchen by cooking dinner. I could take the girls to the mall instead. Afterall, I do have that $50. And the mall has a food court.
Hey, girls, do you want to go to the mall?
 

I watched Mandy all night for any signs of an evil spirit but those damned evil spirits are tricky (again, so, I've been told) and I was still dwelling on the whole evil spirit as a real possibility while lying in bed after the mall. Maybe, despite what I'd been told, the truth is that the Ouija board doesn't really only open portals to hell. I figured that maybe, this time, it had opened a portal to some alternate world? A world where all kitchens are cleaned by little cleaning fairies who carry miniature dust mops and Natural Green spray cleaner. The more I thought about it, the more I liked this idea. Yes, a little cleaning fairy popped out from her little sparkling clean world and attached herself to Mandy. This thought made me quite happy and I'd wondered if maybe a laundry fairy would show up sometime this week? 

I began to drift off to sleep, imagining all of these little cleaning-fairies fluttering about when it occured to me that there was a real possibilty I was going nuts. I mean, come on. Cleaning fairies? Really? A portal to an alternate world? Clearly, I'd been watching too much television. Maybe it was time to have Dan up my meds? I was pretty sure that if I'd shared this information with anyone, I could legally be committed. Staff at the psych ward would point at me and whisper, "There she is, the one who thinks little fairies flew out of the Ouija board and attached themselves to her daughter. Yeah, and the best part is that she believed they were cleaning fairies." I could almost hear them laughing at me.
By the time Dan came into bed, I was back to my semi-sane self with pictures of fairies and miniature dust mops cleared from my mind and, thankfully, I'd remembered to ask him to lock the bedroom door before he got into bed.
That damned evil spirit couldn't get in and knock me off last night! I just hope it sticks to Mandy long enough for the rest of the house to get cleaned. Afterall, who doesn't like a clean house?