Friday, June 22, 2007

7. On mopping the floor


The sudden ditching of a household by a house-maid can have a great impact(disastrous) on the lives of the poor souls of the house. The impact would be greater if you happen to be the only female kid around and especially if you have reached that age when people classify you as a ‘matured lady’(:-/) and double especially if this happens so coincidentally in the middle of a 3-month long vacation when you have officially declared yourself to be utterly jobless(moan!…I had to admit that!). Now.. now..let’s not grumble and groan about the throes of household chores…look at the bright side… Such mishap should instead be considered as an excellent opportunity for discovering those hidden talents lurking inside of you!(height of optimism!).

Being the lazy bones that I am(remember garfy!), I try my best to keep myself aloof from any forms of housework. If at all I am cornered by some work, I choose the least laborious, the least time consuming and most important of all… the least yukiest of work(yuk!!).

But this time, the case is different. You see…Mom gets pissed with me for no fault of mine(after all I am always the pavam, innocent one :D) and I badly want her to give me permission to see POC-3 along with two of my friends(the imp n the devil) the next day. Gotta get into her good books asap…and nothing pleases a tired, overworked Momma like a willing, obedient daughter offering her to lend a helping hand.

So donning the sweetest of my smile, I approach Mom and declares that I’ll be mopping the dirty, mud covered staircase and the adjoining sit-out, which apparently have had no contact with any sort of cleaning gadgets what-so-ever for over a week(thanks to the darned rains, and to those people who find their damn muddy foot-wares too precious to be left at the foot of the staircase).

I wait expecting a broad grin of gratefulness from her. But there came none… (hmm…gotta put more lather in the soap).Struggling to keep that smiling look on my face, I politely inquire about the location of the moping gadgets, about which she directs me briskly, in a very business-like manner(Still no sign of that grateful smile on her face…)

An old, weather-beaten, water-filled bucket in my left hand and a mopping rod in my gloved right hand – I stand on top of the staircase and scan the stairs one by one…one..two..three…….seventeen 30x90cm stairs in all…a total of 45,900sq.cm.+ the 36,450 sq.cm sit-out too…hmm….

First I switch off the front-door light –this way preventing any nosey neighbours from spying on me @ work. I start from the topmost stair…one dip of the moping rod in the lotioned water…and one swish on the floor(I expect a sparkling, speckless, spotless, stair like how those commercials show)but what really happens??O my gosh!!a flood of muddy water on the stairs!!too bad the commercials never show the entire thingy…you gotta squeeze out the extra water before swabbing(hmpf!!)

Second attempt –I carefully squeeze out all the extra water and make another swab...ok...that’s better! but one swish alone doesn’t do the magic…have to do 2-3 swabs and that too exerting much pressure on the floor…its not that easy a task u know…u see this mopping rod in the discussion is quite long/heavy(longer than me…)and I am using a plastic cover as a glove too. I realise...you can’t get much grip with a plastic cover on a plastic rod especially if you are working with water. 

Okie..step 1 gets over somehow!!
Step 2(Oh!)
Step 3(puff!)
Step 4(pant!!)
Step 5(hmpf!!)
Step 6(grrr…..)
Step 7(groan!...)
Step 8(grumble!)
Step 9(aaargh!!!...this stubborn mud!!)
Step 10(aaargh again!!!...this dumb rod)
Step 11(now..now..dont be a whinny kid)
Step 12(gosh !! When will this be over!!??)
Step 13(hey chill!!..think about tmw’s POC)
Step 14 (hmpf again…me and my dumb ideas!!)
Step 15(chill… its not all that bad.)
Step 16(ya right! u can say that again!grr..again)
Step 17(pheeeeew!!!...............................finally!!!)

Hands on my hips, I scan the entire steps once again…Yipeee!!! I did it!!! Not so fast chinky…still half the work still remains…remember the sit-out??…oh yeah right…I make my way carefully up the stairs (shouldn’t spoil my mopped stairs).

Up the stairs I continue my swishing with the mop. Hey this is fun…not like the stairs…just gotta do left..ritght..left..right..left…trrang…er..what was that? I discover a big screw on the floor (not mine k??? mine are all still perfectly intact).Omg!! these people!! How careless can they get to be?? leaving dangerous things anywhere they want just like that!!Oh right ..and my bro claimed to have swept the floor earlier too..Ahaa..this is how he sweeps eh??

With another swish I sent that 2 inch ‘life-threatener’ flying out through the railings down to the garden. And another swish... Er..did something go wrong? My longer/heavier-than-me rod doesn’t seem to be that heavy now. My gaze moves from wherever it was down to the rod. Omg! the so-far-one-unit-mopping-rod has now become 2 separate units -a rod and a piece of rag…what happened??? Hmm… Now that explains the missing screw!!

Mom’s face comes to the forefront of my mind(gulp!)….closely followed by the next day’s POC(gulp again!)Aargh!!that’s scary!Shake it off!!..let’s finish off this crap now.

Pressing the tip of the rod hard against the cloth, I continue my left-right swishing, but with lesser amplitude. My sound receptors suddenly pick up the rumble of an approaching vehicle. It again senses the sound of the gates opening …Who could it be? What if it turns out to be some friend of mine? Worse ...what if it turns out to be a young handsome dude?(though I know the probability of it be precisely 0). Cant let whoever it is to see me in this clumsy way. I make a dash for the door; into the house; to the kitchen where Mom was(leaving the muddy-watered bucket where it was on the stairs…the ragged piece of cloth fell somewhere in the living room -that too in a non-unnoticable palce…and me still holding on to whatever was left of the rod..).When one is in a flight or fright or in this case a ‘chammal’ one hardly thinks of a broken mopping rod or POC or anything at all for that matter.

The visitor turns out to be an ‘old’ relative, and he leaves as hurriedly as he came(okay..so far so good…but wait…not so fast…lemme complete…)HE CAME WITH HIS PRECIOUS FOOTWARE ON, all the way up the stairs and then down, leaving my sparkling-clean steps back to their original state.. (Aargh!!!)…

Moral: Don’t spare the mopping-rod and spoil the POC.
Lesson learnt: Never take ‘mopping the front door staircase’ as a chore to please your Momma on a rainy day.

16 comments:

Leela said...

Matured lady!! LOL! i sure would second tht!!
hidden talents?? for moping?!
thanks a ton fr th mention.. u had to get back at callin u plucky na??
jobless max to calculate th area??!!
first attempt - Rotfl! moped ever before??
how i wish i came to ur house tht day.. shey! missed it!
thanks fr th invaluable moral :D

Unknown said...

truly very interesting!
ur description of the whole process wuz cool...jus' like hw u felt it...n' u jus' provd the height of ur joblessnes calculatin the area n' stuff.
i always knew yu had a loose screw, n' thnx 2 ur loose screw u took away the only screw the head of the mop had!!!

Neethu said...

@lee
u missed it maan...

Unknown said...

mamma... u li'l buddie... i never expected such talent from u man... ur sooo cooooollll...

JiNeSH said...

hey ur mom reads ths bloggss??!

Neethu said...

@jinesh...
good ques....
well u can guess...she never does...gud fr me...:P

JiNeSH said...

ennna njaan paranju kodukkum :P

Neethu said...

@jinesh again...
ennal poyi para ...onnu kaananoolo...
:P....:P

Anonymous said...

heh heh,brot bac memories f ol attempts to butter parents for various reasons,ranging from dat watch i wanted,to permission to go for a scul picnic ..
must admit i never had 2 stoop so low tho..:P
damn,missed poc,cos u cudnt even sweep d floor properly,d imp will get his sweet vengeance,jus wait..

Neethu said...

@ Mr.imp
ya rite...am waiting fr ur vengeance...at CCD k?

Neethu said...

@ imp again...
stop low huh???every job has its dignity..k?:P...aaaaaaaaand btw...its mopping not sweeping...:P

Anonymous said...

ya watever..dont start a gandhian lecture,k?
waiting for revenge..?
its a dish best served cold..so u r in 4 a bit of a wait..

Paro said...

hey great one there...So finally did you go for POC?

Neethu said...

@ paroo...
illa.....what can i say??"POCs labour lost"!...sniff..snif.. :(

Leela said...

heya..hope i informd u abt taggin u. if nt jus chk out my blogspace.. tata

Unknown said...

its too long