Now, it wasn't as if I wanted the thing around and to be honest I already had one AND it wasn't mine. So giving away that giant nativity scene was no big deal. My roommate, Bella, kept saying, "When we have our lawn sale I am SOOOO selling that nativity set." Of course, it was months until "lawn sale season" and I, for one, could wait no longer.
I was on vacation or "staycation" (where you just stay around the area and spend your money locally instead of giving it to some resort, say) as many others do, since the Great Recession. Nobody goes anywhere anymore. And if they do, they don't post pics on Facebook so, really? It's as if they don't vacation at all--(much like in the world or emergency services: if you don't write it down, it didn't happen.)
It took me two days of this Staycation to muster up the courage, but on Day Three I did, indeed, dare open the spare bedroom door and enter. Or, try to. It was full to the brim with boxes and tubs and winter clothing, snowshoes, broken umbrellas and old doors... scrap wood, paint cans and Venetian blinds that might or might not fit one of the 18 windows of this house someone unloaded on me. Usually I drink beer when I clean, (you know, to get through it) but it was 10 am and mid week...so I sucked down coffee and water and told myself I would "begin this project" --not that I would clean this room...even I know myself well enough to know that saying anything definitive about that room would end up with me slamming the door, grabbing car keys and driving at least 10 miles down the road. And if I even thought about looking back, it would be in the rear view mirror.
So I did what I always do when faced with doom: I took three deep breaths and asked myself this: How am I going to survive this staycation spare room spring cleaning? Treat it like an adventure!
I did find, not one but TWO Christmas tree stands; one in a box and one just on the floor with pieces of freshly broken glass all over it. I found two large counter tops (one I have absolutely no recollection of ever putting in there) many boxes of paperwork from as far back as high school English classes and almost nothing of any value. Cleaning makes me hot and frustrated...I hate the mess and half way through inevitably start swearing and feeling melancholy and defeatist all at the same time. So I was almost to the closed and locked window cursing myself and God for the SHIT in this room and the MESS I was in and at one point I did scream ( at least one time) "SOME FUCKING VACATION!" Ok, I may have said that more than once. Then I got the brilliant idea of opening the window, ripping off the screen, tossing the screen out the window and tossing anything burnable out...the plan wasn't to toss things ONTO the screen, but of course that happened, too, in my urgency and heated up state.
Now, you'd THINK that I would have put on shoes for this venture, right? Oh, no, not I! I tiptoed around that broken glass (getting only two pieces actually pierced into my right foot) until I found the floor and a space large enough to vacuum.
Now, when you share a vacuum cleaner with a legally blind person, guess who has to empty out the vacuum cleaner? Yup. So after the thing "calved" as we say in Vermont, I dragged it outside and emptied all the cat dander and organic corn cat litter (yes, I am allergic) into a plastic garbage bag that just happened to be half full and residing on the porch--which then commenced my sneezing attack. Oh, did I mention that it was 80 degrees F and humid? This was coming along so very nicely, I had to continue.
I went back into the room, lugging the dusty excuse for a vacuum and swearing under my breath this time because we have neighborhood kids and many of them. I am a lot of things but a drunken sailor on leave I am not. Heat rash developing on both inner arms, and hunger pangs stripping me of strength (hadn't any time to eat), I persevered dragging two single mattresses from the room and throwing them with all the gusto I could muster out the bedroom door and onto the kitchen island with yet another crash. "First rule of moving something is clear a path!" I reminded myself a bit too late. When I got to the very large box that was taped with blue painters' tape (just about as good an adhesive as a 3-M sticker), masking tape (called that because it masks actually being tape) and Scotch tape (smells good, does nothing to hold overflowing boxes together), I decided to throw the thing out the window. Decided isn't accurate. It was more like: THROW AT the window hoping it would miraculously exit the building and NOT land on the screen window. Which it did. With a crash and some tinkles. I thought, "Cress Crash" and then "SHIT I probably just killed the baby Jesus. And I'm pretty sure you go straight to Hell for something like that."
Eventually I left the house and dragged myself into the steaming noon heat. Checked on my rabbit, Dory, in her hutch who was panting and about to drop dead. Shit. Sidetracked. Not good. Moved the table umbrella--heavy and really long--to shade her hutch--or tried to. CRAP. I checked on her minutes later after a water break and couldn't leave her there so I brought Dory--who ALWAYS gives me a hard time about picking her up even when she's on her last pant--into the shade and cool, clean white Heaven of the bathroom tiles.
It was way past lunch time by the time I finished vacuuming and put the two mattresses on the clean floor by the window. I found clean sheets and pillows and made the bed in time for my 7 year old niece to come over, put on a cape I had made her with her very own name on it and FLY onto the bed saying, "This is comfy!" with a crazy smile because her upper two milk teeth stick straight out. "She's seven," is my sister's answer when asked about those bucky beavers. She won't let any of us pull them so they just hang there looking very much like Dory's. So, it was all worth it until my roommate eventually did open the box. Jesus was still ok, but the angel's hand had been severed, as had Mary's and Joseph's. AND the head of the "little drummer boy", who was always my favorite character in the story. Oddly, the swan was ok (who knew swans were part of the Jesus story) a sleeping dog (again, who knew?) and the ox and the ass. Well, one of them. I, the other ass--and one for whom in hindsight I'm guessing God is gunning for right now, turned out ok. Survived the staycation spare room spring cleaning, anyway!
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