Super Maid

OK, I haven't been blogging this week because I've been exhausted after several hard days of unpacking and cleaning, but strangely, I wasn't doing it at my house.

This week Barry finally moved into his new home, and a couple of days before he called and asked me whether I would help him unpack.  I interpreted this to mean "assist him to unpack" and said sure.  He offered to pay me.  I said that wouldn't be necessary.  Then he started talking about how much his back hurt and how large piles of unopened boxes would stress him out and I understood that he was really asking me to unpack everything for him.  And clean up afterward.  And then help him clean the friends' house where he's been staying for the last  few weeks.

One of the stresses in our relationship was that I like my things to be neat and well-organized, and so does Barry, but he's not willing to do any of the work to keep them that way.  He apparently expected brownies to clean up after him every night.  No matter how many times he whined because he couldn't find something, he either wasn't willing or wasn't able to pick a designated spot for the item to live where he would always be able to locate it in the future.  If I put something of his away, fine, because I remembered where it was, but if he dropped anything at random it was lost indefinitely and somehow that was All My Fault.

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant.  The point I was going to make here is that when Barry needed someone to organize his new life and at least start him out with a clean place, he knew exactly who to ask - Ms. Obsessively Neat.

So far I have been able to unpack and arrange about 90% of everything he owns, and his friends' house is as clean as I can get it without shampooing the carpet.  One more day of the blitz and I should be done.  Of course, his new house has three times as much closet and cupboard space as mine, so that made the whole process go much more swiftly - my infamous "treat this closet as a jigsaw puzzle" skills were not required; I was able to more or less shovel everything into a reasonable logical spot.

Maybe that's a job opportunity I've been overlooking - helping new residents and seasonal visitors to unpack, for a price.

“The time to enjoy a European trip [or a new home] is about three weeks after unpacking.” ~George Ade