If, on the first day of the year, you record your resolutions for posterity and take Communion at church and then host a fabulous dinner party for some of the Best People, then you’ve had a Good Beginning.
And if, somewhere in the back of your mind if not on your resolutions list, you have resolved to clean out every single closet and storage space in your home As Soon As Possible (and you may have decided this because you fell fifteen feet from a deck back in March and shattered several metatarsals and so could not walk and carry things at the same time let alone clean out a closet, then following a satisfactory recuperation went through an academic semester that was, if anything, Hairy and so did nothing about cleaning out closets for Nigh On A Year), then you might be pleased because it is– after all– only January 3rd and you have already cleaned out the coat and shoe closet, the refrigerator, and the pantry (which is Sizeable).
But it might not have occurred to you to clean out the laundry closet, that brightly lit and tight space in the basement. No, it might not have occurred to you, because it only contains two vital appliances, laundry detergent, beach towels, and a neglected but well-supplied sewing basket.
And so it might have surprised you to find yourself doing this anyway, yesterday morning. Yes, in fact, you did clean it out, Behind and Under both appliances, discovering– ah ha!– the location of All Those Socks. But you weren’t surprised to be doing this, because your surprise came earlier, when you checked on the load you’d put in the washer and discovered a ruptured hose behind the washing machine. Yes, that was the Surprise. That, and all the water that was Absolutely Pouring down behind the appliances and drenching walls, floor and carpet.
Then you were thankful that your husband was not (yet) away on business. And you were thankful that the rupture Did Not Occur when you were all away on vacation. You were pleased to be reminded how to Turn Off The Water for the entire house; you were glad for the Many Hardware Stores in the vicinity, for their capacity for supplying things like washing machine hoses and dehumidifiers. And you were (in the end) gratified to clean under and behind the appliances, and to find All Those Socks.
It might not have occurred to you, either, to vacuum under the sofa cushions (because you do this from time to time anyway) or to wash the covers of said cushions. Not today anyway. But suddenly you found yourself doing this chore, too. And this is because, at about half past ten, your daughter, sitting on said sofa, announced in oh-so-calm a voice, “Mommy! I threw up!”
You went to see if it was, indeed, true– and It Was. The stench and the mess (Both) were Sizeable (not unlike, yet smaller than, the pantry), and you were glad that the ill child was four years and not four months old, as age improves Aim, and you fetched a bucket. And then you did some Laundry. And you might not have vacuumed just then, but decided that maybe it was Wise, as the removal of the sofa cushions was Revelatory.
And so, here on the evening of the 3rd of January, you are sitting on your Very Clean sofa with the quieting confidence that there are No Crumbs Beneath, feeling glad that your daughter has not thrown up since Before Noon and that she ate a Good Dinner. And you hear the dryer’s timer go off downstairs and are pleased to have yet another load of laundry through the cycle.
And you are suddenly Very Grateful, because you recognize that these two disasters– the ruptured washing machine hose and the stomach virus– did not occur on the Same Day.
