Housecleaning Meditations

Been cleaning the house today.

You don't really notice how much dirt can accumulate in the cracks between the tiles in the shower stall until you actually clean it. But no, the closer you look you see a thriving multiculture of mould and soot and germs and mildew, all of them growing, one on top of the other. So today, I committed possible species genocide and hacked and hewed into this mini-environment in my shower stall with some wet rags, soap, and home-brand Creme Cleanser. When oh when will we multicellular mammals learn to live in harmony with our fellow bacteria and fungus? On the whole, I think it would be better if we didn't have to clean the shower stall. Much less work, too.

Did the toilet next. Actually, my toilet is pretty clean; I did it a few weeks ago. When I went down to my brother's place in Leichville two years ago, now, there was a toilet to write home about. It was the sort of toilet in which grease and dust combined with algae; the sort of toilet in which you suspected strange, supernatural, alien sentiences resided; the sort of toilet that biologists could sail down and find new forms of life hitherto unknown to man, before returning with two men down and another dying of malaria. That sort of toilet.
By contrast, my toilet is like one of the fountains of Rome, a veritable sculpture, pristine in porcelain.

Fascinating things, toilets. When my parents lived in Coolah, a frog took up residence in their toilet. When you went in to do your duty, you could hear it croaking merrily away, completely unphased what was going on above.
Perhaps if you have a toilet story, you could share it in comments.

I was thinking, while I did the sink and the stove, working around it with a knife to scrape off those tough bits of mould, how much work you do to get the bond money back. Just to please a couple of people. People! If there was one thing I would change about life, it would be people. Over the year-and-a-half that I've lived here, I've accumulated quite a lot of mess. Papers on the floor, plastic bags, that sort of a thing. But - and here's the amazing thing - I haven't noticed it at all, unless people have been around! People can be so selfish that way. I'm of the opinion that they should probably be banned, or turned into more useful or interesting things, like tasty muffins, or mantlepiece ornaments. That, or new and exciting species of mould to inhabit the cavernous cracks in the shower stall.

Except for you, of course, dear reader.