Emily Hoffman

    It's finally spring. This is the time of year when all the women who gained weight during the winter are dreading short sleeves and swimming suits.
     It's the season when mothers everywhere are realizing that summer vacation is nearly here and their kids will be bored by day four of vacation. These women are currently checking into full-time summer camps, the feasibility of hiring a nanny, and the cost of straight-jackets-for themselves, not their children.
     Spring is the time of year when young men's hearts turn to love if you believe the poets, which I do. I find them much more reliable than politicians, Fox News or the blogs. This love theory is proving true in my own life, as my love, dear Hemingway, can often be found in my lap or purring loudly on my chest. Lucky me or lucky cat, depending on how one looks at the situation.
     Spring is also the time of year for the weekly migration of college students. From college to home and back again, these book birds can't wait to get out of the hollowed halls, into the carpeted ones. Once they are treading on their home turf, they begin itching to get back to college.
     Unless you're my daughter. Not long after walking through my door she gets itchy. Not to go back to college, even though that bug does eventually bite, but to clean my house.
     Since I am mature I don't take this compulsion to organize and scrub as an insult, even though it is. I really don't take comments such as, "Have you looked at your toilet lately?" as offensive or indicative in any way of my cleaning skills and abilities. I have a system that can't be understood unless one is over 40. Mine is the "don't clean it unless it starts growing" theory.
     Cleaning is a very personal matter that should not be discussed. It's similar to politics or religion. Unless you're a Stepford wife it's a topic strictly off limits.
     But I like discussing politics and religion, so let's talk cleaning.
     I do clean. I wash dishes, sweep, vacuum, dust, and do the laundry. I would mop, if I could remember where I put my mop.
     Where I used to perform these mundane duties on a weekly basis during the years I was home nearly full-time, I do not attend to them with such regularity now. What I can't pawn off on the two live-in children, I get to, eventually.
     My over 40 theory on cleaning is that it will be waiting for me when I'm done writing, enjoying my children and my cat, when the cookies get done baking, the bread finishes rising, or when my favorite guest finally closes the door then drives home.
     Some people find their clothes on the floor with more ease than they do in their dresser drawers. It's all a matter of preference.
     The fact that my daughter comes home and cleans out my cupboards, silverware drawer and front hall closet, scrubs my shower (I need a new plastic liner I'm told) are what I believe to be a manifestation of a larger problem.
     Without a doubt this young woman needs intensive therapy on a weekly basis for a cleaning addiction. She should drop out of college and stay home for her health.
     If she decides to stay, I'll just leave my cleaning list on the counter so she can attend to it in-between appointments.