Tidy...

She wiped the drop from her cheek. Honestly she had no idea how one person could be so messy. You would think that there had been a houseful of monkeys throwing shit at each other, but no, just one person. And no shit throwing. But still really messy.

She looked around the room to see what else she might have missed. There was a smudge on the wall a little higher than her first round of cleaning could reach. She went to find a step stool. There really was no telling how long it had been there. She once found a splash of blueberry smoothie on a cabinet a year after the exploding blender incident. How it had avoided detection for so long was a mystery. But it had. Old or new the smudge was going away.

It could be she noticed it because of that inevitable cascade that happens with a really deep cleaning. You know the one. Where you clean the carpet and then that shows how dirty the couch is and then when that's clean the drapes really look drab and before you know it the whole house needs to be remodeled because cleaning just wasn't going to be enough. Or at least that's how it worked out for her. The cascade effect.

So much in life could actually be traced to that really. You want to try a new recipe so you find one that sounds good but you don't have all of the spices it calls for so you have to buy all of those, then you discover that it calls for a pan you don't have or a cooking technique you don't know so you are buying, researching, and stocking up on all new things for a simple new recipe. It would be easier to eat every meal out, right? But no, instead the cascade takes effect and you have a $50 plate of food in front of you and a cabinet full of spices you'll never use again.

Or how about a new outfit? How many times had there been a really cute top that then needed a new skirt or pair of pants to go with it? And then the shoes really needed to match and how about that necklace that would go perfectly but you don't have any earrings to match? Cascade effect in action. Now you have all new things and have to figure out where to wear them that is special enough for this really great outfit.

Maybe that new outfit could be worn when trying that new recipe.

She laughed out loud.

She really did crack herself up.

She peeled the gloves off of her hands as she did one last look around to make sure that one rouge smudge was all that she had missed. Everything looked good to her. She tossed the gloves in the center of the drop cloth and began rolling up the edges. The drop cloth had saved a lot of extra work. Even though the floor was tile and probably wouldn't have been too difficult to touch up this way she didn't have to mop. She hated doing the floors any more often than she had to. Especially tile with all the grout lines. Really could fall down the cascade well there. Grout lines scrubbed with a toothbrush leading to the baseboards needing to be washed, or worse, repainted if you found stains that just wouldn't come out. Honestly, how much mess could one person make?

She taped up the bundle and backed out of the room doing one more scan of the walls and floor.

She peeled the shoe covers off of her feet and handed them to the man waiting on the front porch. "Put these on before you go inside. And be careful of any leaks. I'm pretty sure I've got it all sealed up tight, but you'd be surprised how big of a mess one person can make."