Suburban Turmoil
I have this friend whose house is a total mess. Broken crayons and toys litter the floor. Gummy fingerprints are smattered across windows and walls. A thick layer of dust has settled in every corner. Of course, my friend tries very hard to keep things clean, but…
Oh hell, who am I kidding? It’s me. My friend. Is me.
Usually, I try to co-exist peacefully with the grime created by a peanut butter-loving toddler, a chronic coffee spiller and two teen soccer players, but when a certain family member tracked dog shit into the house and I nearly had a nervous breakdown, I realized it was time to seek professional help. No, not a maid; that would be too expensive. I needed the FlyLady.
Uber-housewife Marla Cilley (a.k.a. FlyLady) has created a website ( www.flylady.net) designed to help anyone transform her house to permanent company-ready status by following a slew of quick and easy “baby” steps. Dozens of my friends have raved about the program, although one did email me a friendly warning: “Just don’t get sucked into the FlyLady culture. They seem a little Stepfordish in their devotion to her plan.”
Like Dave Ramsey with a Swiffer?
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In any case, I joined the FlyLady’s email list and awaited further instruction. It wasn’t long before I received a message directing me to go and shine my sink. “When you get up the next morning, your sink will greet you, and a smile will come across your lovely face,” the FlyLady promised. Since I don’t think I’ve smiled in the morning since 2003, the idea sounded good to me. Dutifully, I scrubbed my sink until a hospital patient could eat off it.
The next morning, I went downstairs like a kid on Christmas morning. But when I peered into my sink, soggy cornflakes and coffee stains leered back at me. My 16-year-old and my husband had restored the sink to its former condition before I got even a glimpse of its sunrisey sparkliness. “Slimy, sink-grubbing sloths,” I muttered darkly.
Fortunately, my attention was quickly diverted. Ten emails from the FlyLady were blinking on my computer, including FlyLady fan mail, urgings to drink lots of water and marching orders to spend 15 minutes scrubbing my stove and another 15 minutes throwing away old papers. It was like I was living with my mother again. Only this time, she was trapped in my inbox.
I felt overwhelmed by all of the FlyLady’s instructions, but she said I wasn’t expected to do everything at first. All I really needed to do today was shine my sink. Again. Oh, and one more thing: the next morning, she wanted me to wake up early and get dressed, right down to my lace-up shoes.
Lace-up shoes? I prickled with indignation. I don’t wear lace-up shoes. Still, I’d made a commitment, and so, reluctantly, I got up the next morning, dressed and hunted in my closet for a pair of damned lace-up shoes. Sliding on my high school Keds, I felt like an extra on The Golden Girls.
The lace-ups lasted about five hours on my feet before finding a new home under the sofa. I had failed one of the cornerstones of the FlyLady plan, and I could feel her disappointment burning in my esophagus like acid reflux.
In penance, I spent the next few days struggling to follow every one of the FlyLady’s unrelenting email instructions. I scrubbed my countertops. I vacuumed the carpets. I even did the “27-Fling Boogie,” which required me to dance around and sing “Release Me” while filling a bag with 27 throwaway items. When I paused for a FlyLady-mandated break, I realized my house had never been cleaner.
Enjoying my victory, I began signing my emails as “FlyBaby Lindsay” and toyed with the idea of buying one of the FlyLady’s sporty denim vests. It was so much more practical than an apron. Plus, it would look really good with my Keds. At the end of the week, I walked by a mirror and swore I saw my grandma blinking back at me. I wasn’t fazed. I had been sucked like a hairball up a vacuum tube into the shiny-sink sect of the Cult of FlyLady. And I loved it.
In fact, I might be singing along with the “Feather Duster Shake” on the FlyLady CD right now, if it weren’t for Imogen Heap.
“She’s playing next week at City Hall,” Hubs informed me. “Wanna go?”
“Of course I want to go,” I said incredulously. “Are you kidding me?”
“Well,” he said carefully, “You can’t go looking like that.”
I glanced down at myself. A scrubbing sponge poked out of one denim vest pocket. Beneath it, a trash bag hung on a carabiner from my khaki capris.
Hubs was right. I could be clean or I could be cool, but I couldn’t be both. Shivering at the thought of how close I’d come to clipping Ms. Cheap columns for the rest of my life, I ripped off my denim vest and callously dropped it on my own spotless kitchen floor.
Goodbye, FlyLady. It’s not you. It’s me.