WHOdaTHUNK-IT?
You never reallyReallyREALLY know a fully-grown daughter until you share a house with her. But almost immediately, he realized that his daughter Tara enjoyed a psychotic fixation on cleanliness. Useful, if a bit unnerving.
Whereas over the past 42 months, he'd left housecleaning to rummaging hogs, Tara had now taken a stern and Puritanical hand with his casual approach to litter. Tamp it down, add a layer -- that had become his recent practice. Less work, and much kinder to the archeologists certain to come along after his demise with their gentle hand-diggers, light whisk-brooms, and strainers. In the meantime, any undue disturbance of his carefully prepared layers would surely alter the true story of his long and happy life in his home. . .at least since his beloved wife had died almost four years earlier, leaving him to fend precariously for himself.
Tara showed absolutely no respect for archeological methodology. Neat trenching, careful troweling, and whisking
be damned. He had no idea where she had developed this cavalier attitude toward disciplined science. . .but she most certainly had NOT acquired it from him.
She and her two young sons had begun moving in over the course of the past four days.
Day One called for shifting bedrooms. That operation made necessary the emptying and cleaning-out of closets. His attitude? A spider here and there, a few inoffensive dust-balls, a fine scattering of mud from his work-shoes? Maybe a bent hanger or two, hanging garments crammed in every-which-way. Some smudges on the walls? Shoes scattered indiscriminately all over the floor beneath. When Tara had torn into his immense master-suite closet, it had sounded like a dreary scene from MacBeth: "Out! Out! Damned spot!"
It had been one thing for her to don surgical gloves and dump his stuff from the various drawers of his chest almost directly into the a huge black trash bag. But next thing, she began scouring the drawers with Clorox Wipes. Next came the cutting and laying in of that bubbly stuff rich people apparently use to cover the bottoms of drawers. Any evidence of prior habitation was completely obliterated in the process, with the consequence that any real and useful knowledge of how his original tribe had lived over the past four years in this cave was forever lost.
Changing the bed-clothes? Another exercise in close-order drill. His habit, since the death of his wife, had become to drool a pillow completely full, buy a new one, and throw the old one into the garbage. He hadn't purchased sheets by the thread-count either. He marked the calendar, then counted the months it took them to harden and shatter. Depending on the season of the year, he sometimes smashed them into little pieces with a hatchet and used them for a sorta greasy firewood.
Not so with Tara. Had she not found heavy plastic zipper bags covering the mattresses, he was certain she would've thrown them out, too. There she stood, arms akimbo, head tilted forward, chin raised, eyes piercing his as only a beloved and supremely competent grown daughter could dare: "Where are the sheets I bought new and brought into this house a full YEAR ago?"
Now. . .how would he, how COULD he know where she had stored these alleged sheets? Never mind! They were soon scouring the plastic mattress covers, flipping the mattresses, and stretching new sheets into place. He didn't mean to complain or sound ungrateful: but WHO flips and turns mattresses anyway? One good thing: Tara discovered that his long-burnt-out electric blanket was NOT burnt-out at all. Somehow, the plug had fallen out of the wall-socket. Such are the very rare blessings of fatherhood! He could hardly wait for winter.
As for the entire house: much swiffering, vacuuming, dusting, polishing, and general neatifying. . .and that was Day One.
Day Two involved shoving him into the garage where his chief task became cutting up moving boxes and tying-up stacks of cardboard for Thursday's trash collection. Tara kept a steady stream of emptied boxes flying out the door. Tara had her business, he had his. But his secret view remained that things would've gone much more quickly, had she not insisted upon emptying every cabinet and drawer in every room and closet, throwing out junk as she progressed. Followed by vigorous scouring of all exposed surfaces.
Then came a sorting, counting, selecting stage during which she might say, for instance: "I count 27 pairs of your underwear shorts here. Choose no more than ten you wish to keep. The rest go into the trash or to Good Will, depending. . . ." (Usually, she would stand accusingly in front of him, her fingers protruding through holes in the seat.) Now and then, he managed to sneak a DOZEN t-shirts, shorts, or whatever by her. But not always. And while he admired Tara's clockwork efficiency and judgment, he had to ask himself: who throws away a whole pair of socks because one has a hole that exposes nearly the entire bottom of his heel?
Poor supply-economy, that remained his unspoken view. But he had to admit that stuff
does appear to accumulate over a number of decades. Enough to say: Good Will now has at least three decades-worth of his old -- and somewhat tattered -- but absolutely serviceable clothing. Not that he ever wore most of it. But still: history matters.
Skip over multiple embarrassments of Day Three and rush on to what he would always recall as the Ordeal of the Refrigerators. Two refrigerators remained in the house, one in the kitchen and one downstairs in the apartment kitchenette.
Now: you would think a little mold and mildew wouldn't matter. And never mind a bit of crust around the bottom of a jar or bottle lid. And what difference does it make if stuff runs down the side of a jar and sticks it to a plastic surface? What sort of person makes an ugly face upon discovering that milk has turned to bluish sludge -- and smells a little strange? Or that sliced cold meat curls up a little around the edges and emits a rancid odor? Could he help it if those tangerines turned out to be shriveled oranges? Or that a small watermelon had caved in and turned black on one side? Or that the entire bunch of celery bent double when held upright in Tara's hand? Real men are rarely upset by such things.
He distinctly remembered his Sainted Grandmother -- born 1872, died mid-nineteen-fifties -- assuring him one day when he stood vomiting into the commode: "A little salmonella stiffens the spine and develops true grit!" People were tougher in the old days.
But about the two refrigerators: Tara set him to scouring blotchy stains off the bottom of several drawers. You would think modern plastic were less porous and stains would come out more easily. But NO! Apparently they don't make plastic as impenetrable as they once did. He found that Clorox Wipes worked quite well in removing gritty stuff from all metal and plastic surfaces. But Tara couldn't blame him if for the next few weeks their meals smelled and tasted vaguely like freshly washed laundry.
Still, he had to admit the house was beginning to smell a lot like it had during those more relaxed and supremely happy years when his wife had ruled the roost. In fact, Tara had already made brownies. The truth was that he loved Tara's bustling competence and easy charm. . .the warmly irresistible ways she moved him quickly to do as she asked.
What could he say? Everything she asked him to undertake and accomplish just made sense. Build a new set of removable shelves beneath the kitchen sink? He'd been meaning to do that for nearly two years. Help reorganize storage closets using neatly arranged sets of plastic bins on various shelves? Why not? Trim down his clothing to a serviceable and updated wardrobe? Couldn't hurt? On and on. Tara was a natural-born leader whose enthusiasm and talents were nothing short of inspiring.
He liked having Tara around. In fact, he felt her presence turning
his life around. And anyway: what are full-grown, competent, and lovely daughters for?
He joyfully did as she asked.
He knew he was lucky. He hoped she and her sons would stay.
At least until a good
Young man came along!
