Dust is Just

Do you love house work? Are you thrilled to polish silver? Is scrubbing bathrooms the highlight of your day? Would you rather realign your kitchen shelves than eat chocolate? Would cooking a seven-course gourmet meal thrill you to death?

When I win the lottery I want a chef and a house keeper. In that order. But, until that happens I have discovered a way to beat the drudgeries of housekeeping.

Dust is just.

There is a reason why all of my furniture is covered in dust. I can justify most anything, but this just makes good common sense. No, it is not that I am lazy and hate to clean. Dust is a protective barrier. It is much harder to scratch furniture when it protected by a soft layer of dust. It acts as a preservative by sealing in all the natural oils and protecting the furniture from the harmful rays of sunlight.

Not dusting is also helpful to flora and fauna. In particular, spiders have to have a place to live. I wouldn’t want to spend my life living in a corner, but the corners of rooms make them happy. In those corners, there are usually cobwebs that haven't been side-swiped by a Swiffer or a feathery duster. The webs give softness to the hard corners of the room.

Besides, PETA gives you brownie points for allowing them to live. I think it helps if you name them. Agatha Tarantula and Mavis the Merry Widow are very content at my home. (I wonder if you can get an agricultural land tax deduction for spider farming.)

Back to why I don't like cleaning.

I have a lot of windows. I made the mistake of wanting to let in the light and see the outside. Dumb! (Two parts white vinegar and one part water makes an excellent cleaner, and you can wipe the glass with coffee filters for a lint free surface.) But, seriously, do you want to smell vinegar and scrub windows? What do you see when you finally get them clean and look outside? Grass that needs cutting. PUH-lease!

On to the refrigerator. Yes, it protects food from contamination. OK, we all know about penicillin and moldy bread. We must continue to do research. However, unless the green fuzzy thing on the back of the second shelf growls at you, the refrigerator is fine. Just name them all happy names:  Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Peach Blossom, Strawberry Hazy and good ol’ Milky-Wilky, who has been with us since I tried to learn to make bread. 

Cleaning silver is a thorn in my side. One of the worst wedding presents you can give someone. I tell people that I had mine dipped so it will have that lovely blue black color. Hey, if you shine that stuff you are removing some of the valuable silver and it just oxidizes all over again. Isn’t it better to keep the value by not cleaning? I mean, Antiques Roadshow tells you to leave things in their original condition and not to refinish them. 

Whoa! Whoa! Better get that lottery ticket. Milky-Wilky just tried to bite me.