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Created: November 10, 2002
Latest Update: November 10, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

So Maybe Your House Should Be a Little Dirty

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, November 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

Vindication at long last. I wasn't just leaving the house messy, books on the floor who couldn't find a shelf to live on, cat and dog toys floating about (did you ever try to teach a cat or a dog to put its toys back in a basket after playing? total failure). Long ago I accepted the label of "bad housekeeper." Ads show babies crawling over kitchen floor sanitized practically hourly. "My floor is so clean you could eat off it." OH, shame; oh, cruely; oh, earth mother, how could you let me down so? I have failed as the mother to my house. But now this! The doctors say it's healthy. I mean, I don't guess they'd want the baby to crawl across the kitchen floor where Arnold spilled all the coffee grounds and broke an egg. But that hardly sounds appetizing. Kid would have to be desperate to crawl straight for that.

Maybe now as retirement really sets in for the rest of the year, it's OK if there are books everywhere, art in various stages of cocmpletion everywhere. We're just crowded. But we're making our immune systems healthy. Oh, and surely somewhere someone is giving us points for the three cats we rescued, who form the nucleus of our family.

I am so happy about this article. I think, Agnes, it means that we should do a workshop on how to come to a loving relationship with your house, how to accept this mess that maybe keeps us strong. Maybe our houses love us after all. At least this article makes it sound like my house should be willing to enter an illocutionary discussion on the issue.

Environment Rich in Germs May Reduce Risk of Asthma By Denise Grady. Backup.