franticleaning

why a potent powder of caustic rage and not a caddy is my strategy for thankless cleaning missions

She’s right, that is absolutely what I was doing. Franticleaning. This is a compound verb I came up with a while ago when being reprimanded in the kitchen by Rosa, my son’s girlfriend, who lives with us. She says I’m not good at resting. She does have a point.

Rather than sliding on a pair of headphones, plugging in a podcast and approaching the various domestic dross activities with an attitude of acceptance, instead I throw myself headlong at all the tasks at once, fuelled by liquid frustration and a cloth smeared in contempt.

No portable caddy of cleaning agents for me, rather I arm myself with a potent powder of caustic rage to agitate all the stupid surfaces for being dirty yet again.

I was agitated and thrashing about just now. They notice this immediately, every one of the young adults who live in the house here with me. The energetic pitch and abruptness of the noise in my movements is the sonic giveaway.

They say they don’t even have to see me, they can just tell it’s begun, that I’m doing it. All three of them concealed from the brunt of my banging behind various closed doors and working their jobs remotely. Whilst I stomp and clunk around the home. Sprinting up and down the staircase with various shunted loads. Closing and opening doors and travelling through each room with all the grace of a police officer on a raid for Class A drugs not clothes for a colour wash.

I notice I’m doing this too. I’m conscious of my franticleaning. I think cleaning and tidying up are tasks I now save for when I’m feeling in slight crisis and need to resolve something pressing in my mind.

I don’t want to waste the delicious emotions, the upbeat moods and jauntiness, on the repetitious drudgery of cleaning. Not ever. When I feel good, I do not ever want to be inside clearing up after humans at all.

Sometimes, when I’m powering past him at the table, my son will ask ‘are you alright Mum?’ And I will be. It’s never an impotent rage, I don’t franticlean in strop or in sulk; I’m just processing something hard. Like a stubborn carpet stain in my mind; better out than in. I’m having a mental scour.

How’s the restful morning going then, Sarah? Rosa enquires this time. Today. More than slightly sarcastically. I’m supposed to be taking things easy this morning. Yesterday I was prescribed anti-virals for shingles.

There’s a giant, angry, purple sore growing across my right temple and it has, over the last couple of days, slid down on to my eyelid. This is what prompted the visit to the GP last night. And the fear of it affecting my vision in the only eye which actually works was the fuel for the franticlean just now. Writing this has allowed me to work that part out. I’m concerned about this and need to stay vigilant and set alarms on my phone to remind me to take the pills.

I could write a tonne more about the yawnsome subject of cleaning. And looking at the picture below is reminding me of the Mr Sheen and Pledge™️ which were spritzed with gay abandon in my parents’ home way back. Never is a wet cloth not enough in my house.

And also, look at all that lush golden afternoon light. But I need to pop an anti-viral and scoot to teach students in school. With my scabby, unpolished face and rageless, frantic-free clean mind.

No Pledge, no Mister Sheen. Never is a wet cloth not enough.