I have a huge girl-crush, and I find myself day-dreaming of those delicious cleaning gloves made of latex and rubber. And if they have extra decorations, all the better.  Purr!

Let me back up.

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DC is not just a town in a murky swamp or a city with really crappy weather or a city with bad air quality.

It’s ALL of those things combined.

And one thing that is hard to understand for the newcomer is that all those people and cars and dust and unnecessary amounts of dirt and salt on the roads to combat the winter slush produce something I’d like to call The Fine Particulates From Hell.

These Fine Particulates From Hell seep into your home through tiny cracks and invade any chance they get — they come in with your shoes and groceries and waft in when you leave the window open on a cool day.  The sooty goodness gets in everywhere, even if you’re not even actively opening and closing the windows.  Case in point: when we were gone for two weeks, with only the cat hanging out and no a/c being run, the house got so dusty that within minutes of arriving we were all achooing, coughing, hacking and blowing our noses only to find something that looked more like Rorschach tests than actual mucus.

("…this one looks like a dirty house… and so does this one!  And this one looks like a mop and bucket!  A feather duster!  Is there a pattern, doctor?")

Nastiness aside, I’ve heard from all manner of people on getting allergies upon moving to DC.
And now that I understand the simplicity of the annoying process, I can definitely see how those allergies start.

And I think that the secret lies in cleaning and dusting a lot, which doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun or terribly meaningful… but there you have it.

As simple as it sounds, it isn’t.
Cleaning takes effort and work and is an ungrateful and daily action because living is a dirty, dirty thing.  Dishes get dirty even as they are being pulled out of the sink or the dishwasher.
Showers get dirty as you get clean– only to get dirty again, and in need of a new shower.

It’s a vicious and unstoppable cycle, but it’s not for lack of trying in people’s lives.

Which is where my new girl-crushes come in.

________

"How Clean Is Your House" is the awesomest show on Earth, you see, and its stars are my girl-crushes.

Kim and Aggie have these delightful rubber gloves and wisecracky-yet-no-nonsense personalities.  Of course since I speak American English, they also have the most delightful accents to my ears: Kim’s accent sounds a bit harsh but very English, while Aggie has the cutest Scottish accent, like, evar.  I want a doll that talks like Aggie and pronounces "house" like "hice" .  Loooooove.

And of course, they visit the nastiest, filthiest, most sickeningly dirty houses in all of the UK.  They analyze all the nastiness and dirt and grime; for instance, in a recent episode, they found a direct relative of the bacterium that causes Bubonic Plague lingering in this woman’s kitchen– who happened to be a mother of two kids under 7.  Just thinking that Herr Meow could be in contact with something that horrifying made my stomach lurch.  Then again, our kitchen isn’t a giant garbage pail with walls stained yellow thanks to years of nicotine and tar coating them.

Back to the show….. as they clean the houses and show the inhabitants just how gross their ‘ouses are,  they show cleaning and care tips for the house… which rocks my socks big time.   (nerd!)

Of course, I seriously think that they should also come with a shrink (which I read somewhere they might do for the new season), because some of their victims are all kinds of crazy and do not know it.

Or maybe they do know it.  And so, they do tend to relapse –because you can’t just have ten garbage cans full of nasty crud in your living room and be totally normal and reformed once people come to clean, I think.  After all… it would take very little time at all to go back to the depression and the desolation of that clean/dirty cycle starting all over again.  And again, and again.

Oh but Kim and Aggie…. I love you both.  And I especially love your rubber gloves.

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And to my readers, here is a household tip:  VINEGAR.  FOR EVERYTHING.
Cleaningscrubbingdisinfectingremovingthatnastygunkystickystuffanddrinksomeformosquitostoleaveyoualone!

And if vinegar can’t fix it, Neosporin is the panacea (especially for mosquito bites).