In olden times human beings had dirt floors in their homes. At least the poor people had dirt floors; the rich had things like marble floors and servants to do the cleaning. You didn’t have to wash your floor if you weren’t a servant assigned to do the job. This was known as the golden age.
Progress being what it is, washing the floor eventually became “woman’s work,” and the wife of the family got the job whether she wanted it or not. Thus the tradition of having your mother yell at you for tracking dirt on the floor began. Before that time, it didn’t matter if you came into the house with muddy boots because the floors were made of dirt. The advent of wood floors was the cause of a great deal of childhood trauma.
Many modern inventions are designed to make floor washing easier or more efficient. Along with the regular brooms, dustpans, mops, sponges, and buckets, we have various types of vacuum cleaners, Swiffer WetJets, Swiffer Sweepers, carpet cleaners, and what have you. Accompanying this equipment, we have all kinds of cleaning agents that smell like everything from bleach to lemon to pine. All of these have one thing in common: they can be put away in a closet, and you don’t have to think about them if you don’t want to.
This technique would work fine if it weren’t for one thing: dust. Dust flies around the house and settles down on whatever surface it can find, including the floors. The animal’s hair adds to the dust if you have a pet. In the kitchen, you are likely to have a couple of spots from dropped food or spilled coffee. In other words, the longer you keep the cleaning equipment in the closet, the bigger the mess you will have.
When the mess reaches the height of your ankles, you’re sneezing from the dust, and you can’t stand to look at it anymore, you decide it’s time to take a deep breath, open the broom closet, and get to work.
You are immediately faced with two choices. You can do things the old-fashioned way, also known as the hard way, or the modern way, also known as the lazy way. The old-fashioned way involves buckets, mops, sponges, brooms, dustpans, vacuum cleaners, and muscle power. The modern method involves Swiffer Sweepers, Swiffer Dusters, Swiffer WetJets, and other lightweight items that don’t include using muscles, pushing semi-heavy machinery around, or bending over.
The old-fashioned way has one thing going for it: your floors get thoroughly clean. They had better get thoroughly clean because of all the effort you have to put into the job. The bucket full of water mixed with bleach or Lysol is heavy and has to be schlepped from room to room. At the same time, you must carry the mop you are using to put the mixture on the floor and spread it around. If you haven’t cleaned your floors in months, you will have to press hard with the mop and go over the floor more than once to get all the dirt. If you are really zealous, you will get down on the floor with a sponge and dig at especially stubborn spots. By the time you are finished, you will look like this:
You are advised to use the old-fashioned way if you have an
afternoon to waste use up with miserable, backbreaking housework. You might be able to eat off your floors
afterward, but you’ll be too tired to try it.
I won’t even mention waxing floors. I won’t even think about it. What you don’t think about won’t hurt you.
The modern way produces a fine floor if you don’t have your mother-in-law or some other fussbudget visiting you. With this method, there are no heavy buckets, bleach, or Lysol. There is only a long-handled thingamajig, to which you attach a hopefully absorbent, light piece of electrostatic cloth. If you are “mopping” the floor instead of only dusting it, you attach a piece of material that has been soaking in cleaning stuff and smells just like it. If you are using a Swiffer WetJet, the cloth sticks to the bottom. If you are only dusting the floor, you quickly push the long-handled thingamajig around it, sometimes turning it around so it will pick up all the dust and pet hair, not just some of it. If you don’t feel like bending over and picking up the stubborn things that won’t attach to the cloth, keep turning it around until you catch it or push it into a dustpan. If you are using a Swiffer WetJet, ignore the remaining dirt spots. They are part of the modern housekeeping experience. After you have been doing this for a while, you might end up looking like this:
Today’s apartment or house dweller often chooses the easier way out of the household mess problem. Of course, there will still be some dust on the floor, a few pet hairs here and there, and maybe a drop on the kitchen floor, but you’ll get most of it, anyway. The proper modern housekeeper has learned to be content with this. You can always tell yourself that your home looks like people live in it, which is more accurate than you think.
There is yet another option: hire someone else to clean your place. If you are paying someone else to do the crummy jobs you don’t want to do, you can specify the old-fashioned method. After all, it isn’t YOUR back that is being bent! The only problem with this is the financial outlay. You get what you pay for, though. If you want a clean home and don’t want to do it yourself, pay a professional and shut up. Tips are also welcome in these cases if the person has done an outstanding job and you want to get a reputation as a good customer so they’ll return to continue doing your work for you.
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