A Plea in the Dark

Some time in the past three years an inventor heard my impassioned plea. I had begun to dread cleaning up the house. The very idea that to clean floors I had to take the cotton mop, dip it in soapy water, scrub the floors, then rinse, finally with two weakened hands, wring out the water--a waste of my dying strength. So I ignored the floors. I began to ignore everything in the house. I felt like an old woman who made her way through stacks of newspapers and magazines from one room to another, except in my case, it was dodging fluff balls and ignoring the collection of detritus lining the floors in the corners. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? But R said we had too many "things" in our house to have a housekeeper, so the "things" were the only items that didn't collect over time.

That's when someone understood my anguish and invented the Swiffer. Hubby thought owning one was showing how lazy he was. Who could have been  lazier than we? So we waited a year until R's patience blew to the ends of the earth. He went out and bought one version of the Swiffer. Now he loves cleaning the floors.

I suppose one has to get fed up with old ways to suddenly see above your head a  floating suggestion to solve problems.As  new owners we hesitated to tell anyone we had  one for fear we would be seen as slackers. Then the day came when we heard rumblings about cutting down on housework from neighbors and friends and we perked up and told our story. Before too many weeks passed, we discovered the Swiffer was popular in most homes. We didn't stand alone.

Combined with our dish washer and coffee maker, we are now a happy household.