Words Tumbling Here

Cleaning house before my friends come over for Sunday lunch. And I am on all fours -- on knees on hands -- on elbows even, finding badly behaved letters falling off my fridge making a tumble of words, as I scoot around on my kitchen floor trying to get it in shape.

I remember my mom on a million kitchen floors -- on all fours, seems the only way you can really see what's going on on your kitchen floor. What are all these scuffs and lines and streaks and some tiny Daytona 500 has been going on here and you just have to get down there and scrub it all all the tiny car tire tracks.

More errant letters -- a pink florescent "H" and a green life-guard-jams "S" -- my floor, my life, I'm finding yesterday's nice bright red nail polish manicure and a scrub brush a killer combination when it comes to sticky crud removal.

And the words ... I'm thinking about this life and some might look into the surface of a pond to find themselves, but I can find a lot of words on my kitchen floor. I need to shine it up, so I can look into this domestic pool to see who lives here.

Ugh, who lives here? Just someone with a kid who likes to spill ketchup and other sticky things down the side of this fridge.

Those pretty girls in nice slacks who wield the newest most clever sponge mops in TV houses, seem to know something I just don't. They iron their pretty girly pink cotton blouses and do their hair all to ready themselves to glide these sponge mops elegantly across their kitchen floors, never down on all fours with their cute hind quarters in the air. They are as far from the mop head as they can be. They never get mussed up, but it seems highly unlikely that they know the first thing about their kitchen floors. They are mannikins.

I, on the other hand, have to wonder if I am fighting a losing battle as I wipe one spill, scratch away one black scuff mark, only to find 15 more.

I fight on. I'm a mess with wet knees in flannel pjs. My floor is getting ... somewhere.

Scrub, wipe, scrape.

You have to believe you can make a difference. I even swept the damned thing and vacuumed before washing it.

Wait ... .light at the end of this tunnel.

Aha -- success, this thing is getting a little shiny -- on the fridge the letters cling -- order reinstated -- I'm the monarch of this floor.

I lay back -- crazy girl -- but it's clean enough to eat off, surely to lie back on. MY FLOOR. Sun's coming in the window -- the floor looks great -- but, hell, those windows need washing.