One Clean Rag

Once I thought I would write a book, entertaining, humorous yet filled with bits of wisdom type of book.  Well, I have written, or rather co-written, several books about my ancestors, but those were not the kind I originally had in mind.  I'm in the process of moving files from my old computer to my new one, and took the challenge from my computer consultant (my son) to "clean house." This metaphor nicely segues into my topic I had chosen for a book I found when deleting old files: One Clean Rag.  I read it and slightly revised it, but for the most part, here is the first chapter and opening:

Now why would someone like me who is homemakingly handicapped want to share with someone like you, or anyone at all, tips and experiences from my life as a homemaker, or to use a more up to date term, “stay at home mom?”  (Both of those terms are misnomers anyway.)

Good question.  I can’t answer it except for my mind just keeps going several hundred miles an hour while I fold clothes or pull weeds, etc.  That’s my idea of dove tailing my tasks, thinking about other things while my hands are doing something else.  That’s the only way I could ever get through a toddler’s diaper change while pregnant and expecting the next one, that and an orange peel.  I learned how to change one handed almost while the other hand held the orange peel up to and covering my nose, then I discovered I could hold it gently between my teeth so the peel would curl up towards and sometimes over my nose.  It really works!  So there’s tip number one: the orange peel trick.  Use it and you will have no gagging. 

Anyway, back to what I am thinking about while I am vacuuming, etc.  My mind goes and goes and if I wasn’t so busy then I would write down all the things I think about. I am lucky if I even remember what I was thinking about a few hours after completing the task. But that is how I came up with a title for this book.  I remembered wishing this once---if I just had one clean rag. 

I don’t know what it is about kids, but when I clean the bathtub, toilet, sink and mirror, I use two rags, a wet one and a dry one.  I clean the mirror first because I have tried to clean it last and it doesn’t work, the dry rag is too wet.  Anyway, when my kids had to do the job, they used all the rags in the cupboard, plus most of the towels (and apparently some of the washcloths, because eventually those that used to be blue or green had white spotted areas on them).  Once after an army of small people helped clean, I ran to the bathroom cupboard for a rag to soak up something awful, and there was not one to be found.  Just a pile of soaking wet towels, rags, and washcloths on the floor, with the smell of cleanser in the air. My wish in that moment was to have one clean rag. 

A hard thing it is to teach a child what a real rag is (as opposed to nice kitchen towels) and use real rags to clean up things like oil, grease or paint.  Oft times they confused the dishtowels and dishrags with real rags, and I got real grouchy when I walked out in the garage, spied one of my newer  kitchen towels, tried to pick it up and found that it was permanently stiff and shaped in the position it was last used.  Sometimes I was not able to even pick it up because it was stuck to whatever someone tried to “clean up.”  If that happened, I went in the house and played solitaire on the computer until dinnertime.  It’s important to have outlets for  frustration and anger besides ones that damage stuff or make big messes, because guess who has to clean it up???? Or else buy a new something??? (My cousin Joan lays down on the couch with a spoon and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and watches TV.)

Something needs to be said about the fact my children tried to clean up after themselves, and also complete the tasks they were given.  "A" for effort kids, and also for cooperation.  And I also get kudos for teaching them and then stepping back and allowing them to learn for themselves, regardless of the risks of unraveling greater messes than the ones they were cleaning up. 

Now, later in my life, things are much different. I look at mothering from the perspective of a grandmother and I don’t really care so much about the rags--I finally have enough.  They are all stacked nice and neatly, folded even, some under the kitchen sink, some in each bathroom, and a kitchen drawer full of matching dishtowels and hand knitted dishrags, just waiting to be used.  Wally can even find them without asking me where they are.  Things change when the kids leave home.  I guess I'm one of those things.