The Deep Clean

I've been accused of being overly organized. That's why I loose things sometimes. However what I have never been accused of -- not at least since I was a teenager -- is having a dirty house. Messy is one thing (a state of being that one friend says is evidence of a productive person), but filth is another.

As I've mentioned before, I grew up in a family of six kids. While I would have to hunt for the homework mom moved off the kitchen table in a mess of book bags, papers, and other ephemera of youth, our home was always clean. Last week, I spent a few days before my friend's visit doing what my friend Clarissa, who is doing the same thing at her place in anticipation of her dad's arrival, dubbed the "deep clean." It is usually is a day-long, though sometimes longer, affair in which afterwards the house resembles something out of a catalog.

I am thinking about this a lot lately with the arrival of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. In addition to the town rolling out the red carpet, they've brought out the vacuum. While Oxford is one of the more cleaner places I lived, it's especially tidy this week. A clean house, like a clean town makes everyone feel good.

Just one more reason to wash that dish...